before the book was due.”
The last-minute email worked: Davis’
business manager arranged a meeting
for Ottesen with her. But it meant the
photographer would have to resched-
ule a flight to California. Instead, she
hopped on a bus to New York. Ottesen
says that at this moment during the
project, she was nearly out of money,
but the bus was cheap enough for her
to get from DC to New York, and she
didn't want to miss this opportunity.
The Subjects
There were some obvious figures Otte-
sen wanted to include in the book:
“You start with some of the names like
Angela Davis and John Lewis, who
you’ve known about for years and have
been an inspiration.”
But she felt it was equally impor-
tant to include others with “a different
angle,” such as Pete Souza, who had
served as White House photographer
for President Barack Obama and Presi-
dent Ronald Reagan. (For both, Sou-
za's photos documented their day-to-
day activities, instead of photographing
them from a personal point of view.)
But for Souza, says Ottesen, the cur-
rent administration is a different story.
“He was so appalled at what he was
seeing [from the Trump administra-
tion] that he felt he needed to say some-
thing.” Which Souza does on his Ins-
tagram account and in his book, Shade
(which is a collection of some of those
Instagram posts). In both, Souza pres-
ents photos from his years working for
President Obama but writes captions
that criticize Obama's successor, Presi-
dent Donald Trump.
There are other figures in the book,
as well, who offer a different angle on
activism. Take Bonnie Raines, and her
late husband, John, who broke into an
FBI office in 1971 to acquire and reveal
documents proving that the governmentwas illegally spying on communities
and activists. They were never caught,
but their identities did become known
42 years later. However, it was beyond
the statute of limitations. “You need
whistleblowers in a democracy,” Raines
explained to Ottesen during her inter-
view for the book.
Such interviews require a lot of
research, which is a large part of Otte-
sen’s preparation for her interviews. “I
always do as much research as I can
before I meet them,” she says, which she
believes is what allows her subjects to
be themselves, as much as possible. “To
strip [away] the formalities. To have an
exchange and get to know the person.”
Generally, she prefers to interview her
subject prior to the photo session because
“it gives you time to watch them for a
while—the way they move, their expres-
sions,” and this observation provides a
better sense of what to expect when she
takes out her camera. And althoughJohn Lewis
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