The President and the Boss: Springsteen and Obama recording in New Jersey
Photo Credit: Rob DeMartin

This compelling photograph is crying out for analysis - is this image really representing what happened, and if not, what is going on here? Apparently the President and the Boss met to make a podcast “Two cultural giants tackle the cracked reality of the American dream”. The location appears to be the music room at Springsteen’s home, there are a couple of microphones rigged in a vaguely plausible placing from a sound point of view. In trying to decode this picture I’m looking only at the image, I’m not considering what they talk about in the podcast.

So firstly, with a billing like that, who is in charge here? Bruce Springsteen (the host, known in the music world as ‘The Boss’) or Barack Obama, the man who used to have his fingers on the US’ nuclear triggers. It’s not immediately obvious, the poses are strikingly symmetric: the professional smiles, the sitting back in the chairs and the eyelines. But the differences are more striking because of the symmetry. Neither man is actually at ease in front of the camera, the tightly crossed arms and legs assure us of that immediately.

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