It looks way airbrushed, and one eye is wonking worse than Paris Hilton’s, everything is wrong with the composition, but I love the out of focus Jefferson portrait in the back. It’s kind of “How do you like this!” to me. Damn, though, what is wrong with that photographer? Move three inches to the right, and it would have been much better. Man, though, she is gorgeous.
Looks like the photographer was Joyce N. Boghosian from this article in an archived Huffington page:
The White House has released the official portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama. It was taken in the Blue Room of the White House by photographer Joyce N. Boghosian. Obama wears a sleeveless dress, which has become something of a signature style. The black dress was designed by Michael Kors.
From this wiki page it appears she is a White House Photographer
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Photographs_by_Joyce_Boghosian
I will give her the benefit of the doubt on this photo–I think it is a very bad image. However I didn’t see anything in the wiki link that I thought was a great photo. Maybe she just isn’t ‘my style’ of photographer 
However I still think she made Mrs. Obama look pretty damn attractive. I found Bobtheoptomist comment comparing her to Laura Bush a bit odd. Huge difference I think in their respective levels of attraction in my opinion, but to each their own.
Michelle=good. Rest of photo=bad.
Jefferson portrait=irrelevant.
Like others have said, not a great picture, but I do really think that Michelle is the most beautiful First Lady we’ve ever had.
I don’t know if that Wiki page is representative of her work, but it’s extremely average, at best. Compare it with Pete Souza (Obama’s White House photographer, as well as Reagan’s, and Chicago Tribune photographer in between) work on Obama (here’s a Google image search).
Her hair adds an extra three or four inches to her height.
I still want to know what, specifically, the OP meant by the photographer(?) having a sense of humor.
She is very pretty, but the curtain coming out of her head makes her look like Marge Simpson.
This statement makes me go 
. I guess some people’s mileage really does vary.
Valete,
Vox Imperatoris
I was struck by this image and I couldn’t quite tell why, until I realized that a man running up a big building’s stone staircase is a powerful metaphor in our culture. (Cue “Gonna Fly Now”, from Rocky.)
Because Jefferson, who is now widely acknowledged to have fathered children with Sally Hemmings, his slave, is totally checking out her ass. (Look at the framed portrait, top right.)
I dunno, the photographer definitely made an extra effort to get the portrait in the shot, which is why the picture looks like it has about three feet of wasted space up above Michelle’s head. Whether the OP’s interpretation occurred to her (or more likely, to the First Lady, since I can’t imagine an official WH photographer would try to slip something like that in without the subject being aware) is debatable, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Of course, maybe she just though having a squarish object filling one corner of the frame looked good.
Never saw Jackie?
To be fair, this is probably one photo of hundreds taken on that day. I’d hope the composition was better in the others.
I too think Michelle is one of the most beautiful first ladies this nation has ever had, Jackie is another.
For some reason, I am ticked off there is a flower blocking her left hand…to me that throws the image off more than anything in the background.
She does look pretty good in that photo. Which raises the question: Do I have to pay or register or something to get to the hardcore stuff?
Exactly. It’s a poorly composed shot.
Jackie’s very beautiful, but IMO Michelle has this great aggressive kick-your-ass vitality that sends her to the top. Dolly Madison was no slump either.
I agree that the shot composition is atrocious, and would like to see some of the other photos taken during the shoot!
I think people are responding to Michelle because she is the first First Lady who looks modern. I mean, sure, Laura Bush is attractive, but in that 4th-grade-teacher kind of way. Mrs. Obama looks like a regular 45-year-old woman, and dresses pretty much the way my friends that age dress.
Laura Bush has that thin-lipped, squinty look, and always seemed to have a stick up her ass. Perhaps it was nervousness. Michelle Obama seems relaxed, confident, and completely natural.
I read the thread before I looked at the picture, so I was expecting much worse. It’s not that bad. But it’s not great.
I’d like to say a word for Frances Folsom Cleveland:
Jackie had weird sixties hair.