In his new book, Barack Before Obama, David Katz takes us back to a time when Barack Obama could walk on a crowded New York City sidewalk just like any other guy, talking on his phone, without a single person rushing up to him to shake his hand or try and grab a selfie:
The book—filled with hundreds of rarely or never-before-seen photos (like the one above, which shows Obama having his hair cut by his longtime barber, James Zariff Smith, who would open his shop after hours to cut the candidate’s hair after long days campaigning)—documents the time from Obama’s 2004 race for the U.S. Senate right up to his election to the presidency in 2008.
In our conversation, we talked about how he got to know Obama—and how he earned enough trust that Obama let him photograph his private moments with his wife and daughters.
[Thanks to David Katz and Ecco for sharing these photos, which are all copyright David Katz, from Barack Before Obama, and excerpted by permission of Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers]
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Episode 9: David Katz, 'Barack Before Obama'