Kamala Harris has secured her place in history.
In 2011, Harris — a daughter of immigrants from Oakland, California — became the first Black, first female and first South Asian attorney general of California. She then became the nation’s first Indian American senator.
When she was elected vice president — a role she’ll be leaving on January 20 — she became the first woman, first Black and first Asian American person to hold the position.
Harris participates in an interview with podcast host Maverick Carter in Los Angeles in April.
Only one photographer has captured the intimate moments throughout Harris’ time in the White House.
Lawrence Jackson, a veteran news photographer, has been covering Harris for nearly five years, first with the Biden-Harris campaign and then as her official White House photographer.
“I feel very lucky to be covering the first female vice president,” Jackson said. “I know there are a lot of photographers out there who would see me on the side of the road and run me over just to possibly get a chance to do what I do.”
Harris meets with US Navy Military Aide Commander Renato DePaolis and his family at the White House in March 2023. Photographer Lawrence Jackson says Harris loves when kids visit. “She lets them sit at her desk in the West Wing so they can see what it’s like to be the vice president of the United States.”
Adam Schultz, Biden’s chief White House photographer, called Jackson in July 2020 to see if he would be interested in covering Biden’s vice presidential pick, regardless of who it was.
“They had already said it was going to be a woman,” Jackson said. “So that’s a no-brainer, to be a part of history.”
Ultimately, Biden named Harris his running mate, making the senator from California the first Black and South Asian American woman to run on a major political party’s presidential ticket.
Harris campaigns at the University of North Florida during Biden’s run for president in October 2020. Jackson remembers that the rain held off for most of the event. “But as she ended her remarks, the skies opened up with a downpour to one of her favorite Mary J. Blige songs playing: ‘Work That.’ “
Jackson is no stranger to covering presidential firsts. After eight years as an Associated Press photographer, he was hired as a White House photographer in early 2009, covering the nation’s first African American president, Barack Obama. He was the only Black photographer on the White House photo staff.
But his approach to covering the vice president hasn’t changed from covering a news assignment. He’s always looking for three things when making a photo: emotion, information and aesthetics.
“I think you’ll find that truly good pictures have all three of those elements going for them,” Jackson said. “Whether I’m at the White House or a news event or a portrait for a newspaper, I always try to remember those three things.”
Harris stands with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after Biden’s address to Congress in April 2021. It was the first time in history that two women were seated behind the president for a joint address.
Harris, aboard Air Force Two, makes phone calls to candidates and elected officials one day after the midterm elections in November 2022.
Harris takes a photo on board Army Two. “She’d never asked for my camera before,” Jackson said. ”But she took a great photo that has been credited to her in the White House Photo Archives.”
Harris gets ready to pose for a group photo after addressing the 2024 Air Force Academy graduating class at Falcon Stadium in Colorado.
In July 2024, after weeks of mounting pressure, Biden ended his reelection bid for the White House and stepped out of the campaign spotlight.
Hours later, Harris stepped in.
“I am honored to have the President’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination,” Harris wrote.
People record the moment as Harris and President Joe Biden take the stage to deliver remarks at an event in Largo, Maryland, in August.
There was a lot of emotion in the room at one of Harris’ first events after Biden endorsed her as the Democratic nominee. Jackson said that while his role as Harris’ photographer didn’t change after the announcement, the energy at Harris’ events had ramped up. At an event shortly after Harris became the Democratic candidate, Jackson said he jumped at how the room buzzed.
“The volume, the intensity, the energy. … Say at an event we did the week before was at volume two? It was already at volume 10,” Jackson said. “I was looking at some of my coworkers, and … we all knew that from then on things had changed. It would be completely different.”
Harris eventually lost to Donald Trump after a 100-day sprint to the November election.
“I really hope my pictures speak for themselves and they get a sense of who she is, how she interacts with people, how she cares about what she does, how she truly gets it that she’s the first and that she’s an example,” Jackson said.
“I try to show pictures of her in isolation, because she is the first, and no matter how much support she gets from staff, family, friends, it’s still just her. It’s all on her.”
Harris sits in the home she and her family lived in when she was 5 years old in Madison, Wisconsin. “It was a treat to watch her walk through the home and reminisce about it,” Jackson said. “But the one thing she clearly remembered was the lake and the walks she and her family would take along it.”
As he’s documenting history in the making, Jackson is thinking about history that’s already been made. In April, before Harris ascended to the top of the Democratic ticket, Jackson photographed Harris walking by a portrait of former Rep. Shirley Chisholm by artist Kadir Nelson at the US Capitol.
Jackson saw the photo before he made it: Harris, the first woman, the first Black and the first South Asian American to be elected vice president, side by side with Chisholm, the first Black candidate for a major-party nomination for president and the first woman to run for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.
He walked ahead of Harris to line up the photo perfectly. And then, just before Harris crossed, she looked at Jackson.
“Ninety-five percent of the time, she ignores me. She pays no attention to me. Some days we don’t even speak,” Jackson said. “But she saw what I was doing and looked at me and smiled.”
Jackson’s photos are not only part of the historical record; they were used by the White House team to help influence how the world sees Harris, which became even more important when she became the Democratic nominee.
Harris and Emhoff watch fireworks go off over the National Mall as Katy Perry performs on the night of Biden’s inauguration in 2021.
“The only pressure I feel is to make sure that I get it right, to get those moments as best I can, to tell the story — to tell her story,” Lawrence said.
Not only was Jackson photographing Harris’ legacy as vice president and presidential nominee, he was getting to do it from a closer distance than other news photographers ever have the chance.
“I still pinch myself at the access that I get because, obviously, they put their trust in me to take pictures and tell stories,” Jackson said. “It’s just the biggest honor and biggest privilege to be taking pictures of … the first female vice president and the role that (she’s) played in history.”
CNN’s Chelsea Bailey contributed to this report.
