Sometimes I think my job as a TV News Photographer is equivalent to holding tickets to a front row seat to US and World History. Of course most ot the stuff we shoot is forgotten in days, sometimes minutes but today will be quite the exception, especially if Barack Obama is elected president.
My part of the Obama coverage was to work with Chad Tucker for our 5 and 6 o'clock reports from the event.
With our live web stream, one camera had to be wired to our live truck to feed back the video, but that wasn't me. I was the roaming camera to get other video, not just of Barack but also the reactions of the 2000 people who filled the auditorium.
I wasn't sure at first this was going to be an easy task ,as the media was relagated to 2 risers set many, many rows back from the stage. But just about 45 minutes before the program was to began I found out about another location the media could be.
The 'cut' area at stage left was a designated area for the media to get cutaways (side and rear views looking back to the audience) of Mr. Obama during his speech. So I made my way to the 'cut' area and I was surprised that more TV folks didn't get shots from this area. Plenty of Print Photogs but only 3 or 4 TV guys used the cut area.
The oversized American Flag must have been purposely placed because it made a great backdrop for patriotic pictures and video.
The crowd chanted and clapped and whooped and hollered and Obama made his points trying to persude this biased crowd and the many more watching from home to make him a most historic presidential choice.
After the event, pushing well near our deadline for a 5 o'clock live report we gathered with the other local TV stations onstage, behind the now drawn curtain for a little more of a private moment with the Presidential Candidate. He answered a question or two from each and tried to reassure through our electronic means that he was indeed the best choice for President.
Who am I to say? And I shouldn't and won't.
I was just in the moment thinking about this assignment being a front row seat to a truely historical event in the making.
2 comments:
sweet pics.
very nice... if you don't mind i'm using one of those as a screen saver!
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