All 45 American Presidents and an Odd Image of Them

Being president of the United States usually means posing for carefully planned photographs surrounded by flags, dignitaries, and people trying very hard to look serious. Luckily, more than two centuries of American history have also produced some considerably stranger images. Presidents have been photographed playing unusual sports, hanging out with celebrities, wearing unexpected outfits, making unfortunate faces, and occasionally looking like they would rather be anywhere else. The earliest presidents didn’t have cameras following them around, of course, so their portraits will have to do some of the work. Once photography became commonplace, things got much more entertaining. From centuries-old paintings to wonderfully awkward candid shots, here’s a different look at all 45 people who have served as president.

George Washington

Photography wouldn’t exist for decades, so Washington never got the opportunity to leave behind an awkward candid photo. Luckily, some of his less familiar portraits still offer a change from the version staring back from the dollar bill.

John Adams

Adams died before photography could preserve one of his famously grumpy expressions. Painted portraits will have to do, and artists certainly weren’t shy about capturing his intensely serious demeanor.

Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson is another president who belongs entirely to the portrait era. Skip the image everyone remembers from textbooks and suddenly even a familiar Founding Father can look surprisingly different.

James Madison

There was no chance of catching Madison blinking at the wrong moment or struggling through a ceremonial first pitch. His surviving painted and engraved portraits are about as candid as we’re going to get.

James Monroe

Monroe also left office before photography became practical. Fortunately, there are enough portraits and engravings around to avoid using the exact same presidential image everyone has seen a hundred times.

John Quincy Adams

Now things get interesting. John Quincy Adams became the earliest U.S. president with a surviving photographic portrait, although it was taken years after his presidency. Seeing someone born in 1767 in an actual photograph feels strangely modern.

Andrew Jackson

Jackson was also born in 1767 and lived long enough to encounter photography. His surviving daguerreotypes capture an elderly former president who looks considerably less polished than the face familiar from painted portraits.

Martin Van Buren

Van Buren made it into the photographic era too. Between his unmistakable sideburns and enormous collar, even a straightforward portrait manages to have plenty going on.

William Henry Harrison

Harrison’s presidency lasted only 31 days, and photography doesn’t give us much help here. His familiar portraits will have to stand in for the odd presidential moments he never had time to accumulate.

John Tyler

Tyler survived long enough for photographers to capture him later in life. He doesn’t exactly look thrilled about the experience, which at least gives us something more interesting than another painting.

James K. Polk

Polk became one of the earliest sitting presidents to be photographed. The technology required subjects to remain fairly still, which might help explain why early presidential photography wasn’t exactly overflowing with smiles.

Zachary Taylor

Taylor also made it into the photographic era before his death in 1850. His slightly rumpled appearance gives some of his portraits considerably more personality than the carefully painted presidential version.

Millard Fillmore

Fillmore’s photographs have everything you’d expect from a mid-19th-century statesman: an enormous collar, carefully arranged hair, and an expression suggesting that smiling was not part of the appointment.

Franklin Pierce

Pierce looks almost unexpectedly contemporary in some surviving photographs. The hair helps, particularly when it refuses to cooperate with the otherwise extremely serious presidential styling.

James Buchanan

Buchanan’s distinctive gaze makes even an ordinary photograph immediately recognizable. He was photographed often enough that we can at least move beyond the standard official portrait.

Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln may have one of America’s most recognizable faces, but not every photograph caught him looking quite so monumental. Some of his less formal portraits let the unruly hair do most of the work.

Andrew Johnson

Johnson was photographed extensively enough to leave us alternatives to his familiar official image. He still rarely looks particularly delighted to have a camera pointed at him.

Ulysses S. Grant

Grant looks considerably more at home when photographed with a horse than when posing behind a desk. Considering his reputation as an accomplished horseman, that probably isn’t surprising.

Rutherford B. Hayes

Hayes left behind photographs with family and around his home, offering something a little more relaxed than the standard presidential pose. By this point, cameras were finally beginning to show presidents as actual people.

James A. Garfield

Garfield’s presidency was tragically short, limiting the presidential photographs available. Earlier images still show him outside the rigid portrait format that dominates so many of his predecessors.

Chester A. Arthur

Honestly, Arthur doesn’t need an unusual activity to make an image memorable. Put the spectacular sideburns together with an elaborate 1880s outfit and the photograph already has plenty of personality.

Grover Cleveland

Cleveland enjoyed fishing enough to be photographed doing it, giving us a welcome break from desks and formal suits. A president quietly holding fishing gear somehow feels much more human.

Benjamin Harrison

Harrison was photographed during family gatherings and trips as cameras became increasingly common. Those images provide a much less formal look at a president usually remembered through an extremely serious beard.

William McKinley

McKinley was photographed extensively while traveling and meeting crowds. Add some elaborate late-19th-century formalwear and an enormous top hat, and even routine presidential business becomes visually interesting.

Theodore Roosevelt

Finding an unusual Roosevelt image is almost too easy. He rode horses, explored the wilderness, posed with animals, and generally behaved like a man determined to give future generations interesting photographs.

William Howard Taft

Taft was an enthusiastic golfer, and cameras captured him out on the course. Watching a president from more than a century ago take a swing somehow makes the distance between then and now feel much smaller.

Woodrow Wilson

Wilson got in on the presidential tradition of throwing ceremonial baseball pitches. Formal clothing plus athletic activity is a combination that almost guarantees a slightly awkward photograph.

Warren G. Harding

Harding was another presidential golfer, although his course attire looks considerably more formal than what you’d see today. Apparently even recreation required dressing like the president in the 1920s.

Calvin Coolidge

Coolidge usually cultivated a reserved public image, which makes photographs of him wearing an elaborate feathered headdress during a 1927 visit to South Dakota particularly striking. Presidential history occasionally produces images no caption could adequately prepare you for.

Herbert Hoover

Hoover had an entire sport associated with his exercise routine. Hooverball involved throwing a heavy medicine ball over a net, leaving us with presidential fitness photographs considerably stranger than the usual morning jog.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

FDR’s less formal photographs show another side of a president usually pictured behind a desk or speaking to crowds. Images around the water are particularly notable because swimming became an important form of exercise for him.

Harry S. Truman

In 1945, Truman sat at a piano while actress Lauren Bacall posed on top of it. It’s hard to imagine a modern presidential photo op producing quite the same combination of glamour, awkwardness, and absolute commitment to the bit.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Eisenhower’s love of golf produced plenty of photographs that look nothing like an official presidential portrait. Whether he’s swinging, putting, or reacting to the game, they’re much more relaxed than the usual White House imagery.

John F. Kennedy

Some of JFK’s most memorable photographs involve his young children wandering through the White House. John Jr. playing beneath the Resolute desk turned one of America’s most formal rooms into a very ordinary family space.

Lyndon B. Johnson

Johnson wasn’t particularly shy around photographers. That resulted in an enormous collection of candid images, including moments with his dogs, family, and visitors that make the White House look considerably less formal.

Richard Nixon

Of all the unlikely White House pairings, Nixon and Elvis Presley may still be unbeatable. Their 1970 meeting produced an image that looks like two completely separate pieces of American history accidentally collided.

Gerald Ford

Ford was genuinely athletic and remained active well into adulthood. Photographs of him swimming, skiing, and playing sports offer plenty of alternatives to another man sitting behind the Oval Office desk.

Jimmy Carter

Carter’s outdoor hobbies gave photographers plenty to work with, but nothing became quite as strange as his encounter with a swimming rabbit while fishing in 1979. Presidential history has very few comparable sentences.

Ronald Reagan

Long before the White House, Reagan spent years in Hollywood. That means his presidential image archive has to compete with movie publicity shots featuring costumes, elaborate poses, and, most memorably, a chimpanzee.

George H.W. Bush

Bush didn’t give up on adventure after leaving office. He celebrated several milestone birthdays by skydiving, eventually making a parachuting former president seem almost routine.

Bill Clinton

Clinton brought his saxophone onto “The Arsenio Hall Show” during the 1992 campaign and performed while wearing sunglasses. Decades later, the image still looks like an extremely concentrated dose of the early 1990s.

George W. Bush

Bush produced no shortage of unusual candid photographs during eight years in office. Whether dancing at an event or struggling with an uncooperative rain poncho, he occasionally gave photographers considerably more than the standard handshake.

Barack Obama

White House photographer Pete Souza captured Obama pretending to be caught in Spider-Man’s web by a young visitor in costume. It’s difficult to maintain presidential dignity when a tiny superhero has you cornered.

Donald Trump

Trump’s 2017 appearance during the solar eclipse produced one of the more unusual presidential images of recent years. For a brief moment, photographers caught him looking toward the eclipse before he continued watching with protective glasses.

Joe Biden

White House Easter celebrations provided plenty of unexpected photo opportunities during Biden’s presidency. Put a president next to a giant Easter Bunny and the image is already doing most of the work.