She was always in the thick of things: since the mid eighties, Walker accompanied the presidencies of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, as an assignment photographer for TIME magazine. In addition, she documented the election campaigns of Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Al Gore, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton. Her timeless pictures reflect her ability to not only document specific moments, but to also create images that today – detached from the original occasion – reveal much more about the personality portrayed and the sensitive machinery of political staging. We spoke with the great photographer about her beginnings and her experiences.

When did your interest in photography begin?
I loved how cameras worked. I remember my first Brownie Hawkeye, and soon fell in love with a camera in the window of Morgan’s Pharmacy near our house: a Kodak Pony 135. All through my teenage years I took pictures at home and at school, loving black and white Tri-X film, as I could process it in our basement where my chemicals were always in the way of the laundry detergent! When I reached high school, as was the custom in my parents lives and my older brothers, I went off to boarding school. I have often laughed that I chose my boarding school because it had a beautiful darkroom! I had two interests that kept me from studying as much as I should have: photography and theatre.

Presidential candidate Walter Mondale being surrounded by the press after landing at the Seattle-Tacoma airport Washington state in September, 1984

Three pairs of Mondale family feet inside curtained booths as wife, Joan Mondale; Democratic presidential nominee and former vice president Walter Mondale; and his daughter, Eleanor Mondale, vote in the presidential election, Afton, Minnesota, November 6, 1984

President Ronald Reagan, CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite, White House Press Secretary James Brady (partly obscured), White House Staff Secretary David Gergen, Counselor to the President Ed Meese, Vice President George H. W. Bush, White House Chief of Staff James Baker, and, in the foreground, CBS vice president Bud Benjamin, sharing a joke during “a small pour” to celebrate Walter Cronkite for having concluded his final interview with a sitting president as anchor of the CBS Evening News, done just moments before at the White House, March 3, 1981.

What happened next?
Fast forward to college where drama class was first on my list of activities. My cameras were collecting dust. I was married at 20, had two sons during the 1960s and, as our family grew, I started taking pictures again of our boys. I believe that my mother’s interest in colour, in fashion, in the Impressionists and in art in general had a very helpful effect on me. I believe it began to influence how I framed images. I helped decorate the windows of my mother’s dress shop, and tried to pick up some of her charm. I definitely failed with the charm.

And how did you find your way back into photography?
A great friend knew I should be taking pictures instead of trying to be my mother. Good advice. And she was such a good friend: she said she would go into business with me to get me started. So we started I AM A CAMERA. We photographed weddings, bar mitzvahs and book jacket pictures. I made every mistake there was to make. Then a call came from a small political magazine where a good friend was working: would I be interested in shooting pictures, where the money would be minimal, but the experience great? The big appeal was that the editor would apply for a press pass for me to go to the White House and Capitol Hill! This began my life in pictures.

With an ice cream cone in hand, First Lady Hillary Clinton waves to the crowd in Weedsport, New York, as she heads to visit Seward House and the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged, in Auburn, New York, one of the stops on her Save America’s Treasures tour, July 15, 1998

Secretary of Defense William Cohen, President William J. Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and National Security Advisor Sandy Berger have an informal moment while sitting in a row in a backstage holding room at the NATO Summit being held that year at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, on April 25, 1999

Vice President Al Gore, King Hussein bin Talal of Jordan, and President William J. Clinton talk as Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu and Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization Yasser Arafat confer in the corner of the Red Room of the White House on October 2, 1996

Roger Ailes, Craig Fuller, and President George H. W. Bush backstage at the Republican National Convention, Houston, Texas, August 20, 1992

President George H W Bush prepares for a photo shoot with his family during the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston, TX on August 20, 1992

Did this also mark your path into the world of political reportage?
Strangely my late brother and I both became photographers. My brother’s work took him to New York and the world of fashion and interiors. My world was Washington where the subject was politics. As the daughter of a physician and a lovely dress shop owner, who lived in Georgetown, seeing a politician at our house for dinner, or columnists, senators, foreign service officers, etc. was the norm for me. At school we would have the daughter of an ambassador, or a congressman, or a cabinet secretary, or a parent brought before the McCarthy hearings. I remember my father giving medical check-ups to employees of the World Bank or my mother finding just the right dress for a First Lady’s trip to India – it was all a natural part of my world.

Obviously, the best qualifications to work in the White House?
Starting in the Reagan years, my editor at TIME introduced the idea of asking for me to go behind the scenes, where there were no lights and mics, where there were no other photographers except perhaps the President’s photographer. I would become a fly on the wall. I requested of TIME that if I could achieve “behind the scenes”, there would be no TIME reporter with me. This to me was key. No reporter to distract the subject. The White House would have to trust me not to repeat anything I heard. I took very seriously the fact that I came into the room with a Leica, not a pencil. Behind the scenes was the kind of work I loved and there was only one kind of camera I would use. One of my Leica range finder M series cameras.

US President Bill Clinton photographed by the traveling pool as he makes a call from his office on Air Force One on his way to Iowa to inspect flood damage on July 14, 1993

A row of COKE cans and telephones photographed during President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan’s state visit to Lisbon, Portugal, on May 9, 1985

First Lady Nancy Reagan kisses her son, Ron Reagan Jr., after his performance in the Joffrey Ballet, 1981

Looking back, how do you see your work today?
Today I’m struck by how different the magazine world is compared to when I was working. I believe the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s were the golden age of magazines. Politicians and Presidents wanted to be in TIME magazine, Newsweek, The New York Times Magazine, US News, or Stern, Paris Match, or the British Sunday Times magazine. TIME wanted photographers to be at the White House every day, so we never missed anything the President was doing, even when he didn’t have a public schedule. We were never to miss a surprise. That is a lot of day rates! And there was plenty of work.

What do you think of today’s press work, given the sheer mass of current images vying for attention in the media?
Then, of course, with the coming of a camera in a portable phone, things began to change radically. In many different ways. Social media began to send messages around the world in an instant. I had a photograph go viral – my first and only viral image. People now get their news online and fake news has undermined all news outlets. No more morning newspapers when people can get the entertainment version on Instagram or Tik Tok.

With a bit of melancholy, we prefer to look at your photographs, of which you recently published a new selection in the photo book Through Her Lens. Thank you very much for the interview!

Diana Walker was born on January 20, 1942 in Washington D.C.. She started out as a freelance photographer; then, as of the mid seventies, worked at Washington Monthly magazine, and as of 1979 as assignment photographer for TIME magazine, with the opportunity to report directly from the White House. Her work has appeared in international magazines, numerous exhibitions and many photo books, including The Bigger Picture. 30 Years of Portraits (National Geographic, 2007), Hillary: The Photographs of Diana Walker (Simon & Schuster, 2014) and Through Her Lens: The Photojournalism of Diana Walker (Briscoe Center for American History, Texas 2024). The Diana Walker Photographic Archive at the Briscoe Center includes over 200,000 images. Diana Walker lives in Washington D.C.

A portfolio of Diana Walker’s work appeared in issue 4.2024 of the LFI magazine.