Click here to see the full gallery of  “Obama’s People.”

“In December and early January, the photographer Nadav Kander shot 52 portraits of Barack Obama’s top advisers, aides and members of his incoming administraiton.  Kander and the Times Magazine’s directory of photography, Kathy Ryan, discuss putting those portrait sessions together and what happened behind the scenes.”

For a reflection on how such portraiture is reminiscent of Richard Avedon’s work, including his “The Family” project published in Rolling Stone in 1976, (and lest we forget, Mathew Brady’s “Gallery of Illustrious Men” from the antebellum period), see Gerald Marzorati’s editorial letter in the NYT here.