President Barack Obama has Pete Souza, Lawrence Jackson, Charles Kennedy and Amanda Lucidon. Chancellor Angela Merkel has Jesco Denzel, Sandra Steins, Guido Bergmann and Steffen Kugler – four photographers who follow her in Germany and around the world, recording her every move – or at least those they can get access to.
While in the U.S., Souza, Obama’s chief photographer, has virtually unlimited access to the president, in Germany, where Angela Merkel is known for her aversion for photographs of herself [she declined to be photographed for TIME’s story], the job is a little more complicated