Obama releases new official portrait

The Obama transition released a new "official portrait" of Barack Obama today, taken by the president-elect's new official photographer, Pete Souza.

Take a look, or click here.

The Obama transition boasts that it's the first presidential portrait taken by a digital camera. That was something that came up when I recently interviewed President Bush's official photographer Eric Draper, last week. Draper said that when he started the job when Mr. Bush took office in 2001, the White House photo office was "way behind the times."

"It was a film process and it took four years to finally switch to digital," Draper told me.

Look for my profile of Draper in the paper next Monday or Tuesday. He shares his philosophy on how a presidential photographer should conduct himself (there is a debate about this) and tells some cool stories.

-- Jon Ward, White House reporter