What’s It Like to Photograph the Pope? | Exposure

I've never had an assignment that was so frightening in that I had no idea what I was going to shoot. The biggest challenge to photographing the Vatican that I found was simply getting in there. It's like a gigantic curtain. Just to get behind this curtain takes weeks.

I had the idea to befriend the Pope's personal photographer, Francesco Sforza. We pretty quickly developed a really, really strong friendship. The access from that point was remarkable. I could stand right beside him; there were always, you know, quite a few people around him. I was able to get the proximity to really see the expressions on the faces of the pilgrims. That really captivated me.

I personally can't think of a world leader who is so frequently greeted, embraced, and treated like a long-lost uncle. Once they got to know me and they trusted me, then I was able to do things that even now seem kind of unimaginable— to work within St. Peter's Basilica and be able to walk around on the catwalk all the way around the top of the Basilica during a service where the Pope is down below.

I think it's going to feel surreal that I was able to witness those things. At the same time, it's been a really remarkably memorable experience. It has been work; it has not been what I would call a spiritual experience, although being around Pope Francis and seeing, in my opinion, how genuine a person he is, has been in many ways inspirational.

Of course, the picture that I think is really going to make the difference for me on this assignment came on Christmas Day. Pope Francis was greeting a number of people, and immediately afterward, Francesco says to me in a whisper, "He's going to the Sistine Chapel." He goes in, and he's standing there for all of three or four seconds, and then he leaves. I have a hunch that that might have been his Christmas present to me and Francesco.

He is in the process of, I think, clearly becoming a historical Pope. I think that he is doing some things that will be very difficult for future Popes to undo. In that way, I think it's a very compelling reason to do this story now.