Take this as another example of, it doesn’t pay to work for Donald Trump. The former president informed his White House photographer that he will not let her publish a book of pictures from the White House unless he gets a cut, the New York Times reports.
Worse yet, Trump has used the works of his chief White House photographer, Shealah Craighead, in his coffee table book, which he profits off of, putting the photographs in a questionable legal status that may prevent her from using them herself.
Since at least the Reagan Administration, White House photographers have published books of their images along with recollections or details of the moment. Every president since Reagan has contributed a forward or prelude to the books as an endorsement of the photographer and the project.
Not Donald Trump, though. When informed that Craighead intended to publish a book, Trump (through intermediaries) informed her that he would write a forward and market the book for a cut of her advance from her publisher.
Further complicating matters, Trump used Craighead’s photographs, and those of other staff photographers, in his own post-fleeing to Mar-a-Lago book, which unlike previous presidential memoirs, took the form of a picture book. The 320-page book, “Our Journey Together,” sells for $75 and currently ranks 3,945th on Amazon. Because of copyright laws, using the photos may preclude Craighead from using her own photos in her own book.
“It’s a slap in the face,” George W. Bush’s photographer Eric Draper said, adding that he had spoken with Craighead last year about her plan to do her own book. “I would be disappointed if I were in her shoes.”