Barack Obama

WHEN TERRY MET BARACK by BERNARD-HENRI LÉVY THESE PHOTOS ARE ALREADY DOCUMENTS. How much time has passed between the moment when they were taken and the official entry of the American President into the Oval Office of The White House? A matter of a few weeks, months, years? It’s as if it were a century. Or, in any case, a lifetime. Because the man portrayed in TERRY RICHARDSON’s pictures is not the same man now. He appears to be light-hearted. Charming. Relaxed. Cheerful. Strangely detached. Young, too. Yes, incredibly younger than the man in the constant flood of official images handed out by press offices today. This Obama is still carefree, unsure of his destiny, uncertain about his programmed rendezvous with the future — although he looks anxiously at his watch.  A cool Obama, in an almost physical sense, as he doesn’t yet have the weight of the world on his shoulders…