Obama, the Future President

There’s a saying: “It’s the journey, not the destination.” I normally subscribe to this little nugget of wisdom, but this was not the case in my effort to photograph the future president. For me, the journey sucked but the destination was great.

I was based in Virginia for about six months in 2008 on a yacht project. The presidential campaign in was in full swing and I heard that Barack Obama would be at the Virginia Beach convention center for a campaign rally on the weekend. It would be a great opportunity to see him speak and be apart of something exciting.

More shots below
Unfortunately, there was no way to get advance tickets or reserved access as it was first come first served. The doors were to open at 6pm.

I’m not one to camp out for concert tickets, or bum rush a midnight sale the day after Thanksgiving. I just don’t care about it that much ever, even less in cold, windy weather. We would have to get there early and wait in line for hours. Have I mentioned, I don’t like cold and I don’t like standing in line. God knows why I was in Virginia at all, let alone in February. My girlfriend was very excited about the chance to see Obama in person and so I reluctantly went along.

We arrived at the convention center at around 10am to find about 200 people already in line eight hours before the doors would open. It was more than I had expected which meant we would have to join them now. It was only about 40 degrees and a cold gusting wind knifed through the crowd every few minutes. I don’t need reminders like this of why I’ve spent most of my adult life in tropical places. (Hawaii, Caribbean, Thailand etc.)

The energy was very positive in the crowd and it felt I was part of something great. I was miserable though. Standing in the cold wind for the next several hours was not where I wanted to be. She was happy though and would stand there forever to witness this event, so I hung on quietly. Things were tense for us on this day because I was being a baby.

I couldn’t really get a straight answer from any of the event staff regarding what camera gear was allowed inside. I had brought my Nikon D2X and an 80-200mm telephoto lens. A pretty nice rig if I say so myself. Some said no it wouldn’t be allowed, others weren’t sure. I’d noticed plenty of other people had some large cameras too and decided I’d just keep an eye on them to see what happened when the doors finally opened.

So now, in addition to seven hours of line standing and being cold with no food or water, I had the uncertainty of whether or not I could take photographs with anything more than a point and shoot. I generally don’t even want to see something if I can’t photograph it. And now, I was sure I was wasting this Saturday.

All was not lost. Finally, at 6pm, the doors opened. The line surged forward, excitement was building in the crowd as we wound our way through the doors, passed security and into the staging area (cameras included!)
Obama arrived about an hour later and gave a stump speech to a few thousand people crowding the hall. We were right up front, only five or six people back and had a great view of the future president. Eight hours in line had paid off, any less and we would have been squeezed into the back of the room, far from our current position.

As expected, the light was crap, it always is in a place like this. I bumped up the ISO as high as I could tolerate the noise levels. Luckily there were a number of people who would speak before Obama , which meant I could use them to do some exposure tests and get it sorted out before he took the stage. I knew he would only be up for about 10 minutes and I didn’t want to miss anything.

I set my exposure manually and in a very rare move, decided to use on-camera flash. Off-camera flash is always better but it wasn’t going to happen today. The flash would fill some shadows from the hard stage light and at the very least put some highlights in his eyes.

Yes, it was worth the miserable journey. I not only witnessed something inspiring and important, I also came away with some great photographs. In this case, it was the “destination.” Next time I’m getting a press pass.

Gear: Nikon D2X / Nikon 80-200mm F2.8 lens / Nikon Sb-28 speedlight on camera

Exposures: ISO 400 F4 shutter speeds ranged between 1/100th and 1/200th

As always, click any image for the larger version. TR