At Home And On The Road

The Other Unannounced Trip

2009-12-18T09:22:00.000-08:00

After a somewhat disappointing couple of days in Kabul, we were pulling up stakes and making an unannounced trip to Baghdad. We, of course, knew about the trip, but it was apparently news to the rest of the world. We cleaned out our underground room and dropped our bags off by 6AM. It would be a few hours before the motorcade would roll back to the airport so I headed over to the mess hall to have breakfast with the FOX crew.

The mess hall, called “Goat House” had a pretty extensive lineup of food offerings. Everything from made to order eggs to waffles and every imaginable kind of breakfast meat. Since I like burritos, I thought I would give one of the little breakfast burritos a try. I won’t be doing that again. I couldn’t even identify what was in this thing. When I cut it in half a molten blob of yellowish goo slowly oozed out. Was it cheese? Eggs? I honestly couldn’t tell. Even the taste was somewhat unfamiliar. It was a little cheesy tasting, but not really. I’m sticking to cereal from now on.

There was one last photo op at Eggers before we left. Bob would be meeting with the British Minister of Defense and we had about a minute or so at the top of the meeting to do a photo spray. The staff referred to him as the “MOD” which led me to wonder if he would arrive on a Vespa with a green parka on that had a Who patch on the back. The FOX cameraman asked if he had shaggy hair.

The spray took place in a really small room that could barely fit 5 people let alone the 20 or so that would soon pack in for the meeting. Right before the top of the meeting we were told that some of the British press would be coming in. I staked out my spot and waited. Seconds before Gates came in with the “MOD” a TV crew and a stills guy came in and proceeded to push me and the FOX cameraman out of the way. It was unreal. At least they didn’t just stand in front of us. I’ve gone down that road before.
We all geared up and made our way to the airport where an Air Force C-17 cargo plane would take us to Baghdad. The press and staff would sit along the walls of the plane in jump seats while Bob would be inside a customized Airstream trailer that was safely secured in the cargo hold. The five-hour flight was pretty uneventful. Unfortunately, I had packed away my iPod in my backpack that was now under a ton of bags that were strapped to a pallet. This made the flight a little dull. At least we had power so I could get some work done.It was nice to walk off the C-17 onto the tarmac in Baghdad and see the sun shining with temps well into the 60’s. The cold in the ‘Stan was getting old. About 100 yards away from the plane eight Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters waited to take us to Camp Victory, a five minute ride. Soldiers stood at attention outside the birds as the delegation made their way across the tarmac.
Being back in Iraq was like going back to my old neighborhood or seeing a house that you used to live in. We flew over the airport terminal and the infamous Baghdad Airport Road where I used to come to pick up colleagues at the airport. There was the parking lot where we would wait and on a few occasions watched mortars fall about 100 yards away in an open field. The memories were flooding back. The quick flight dropped us off near Saddam’s Al-Faw Palace. I was in this place back in 2004 and was so surprised at how poor the craftsmanship was for being such a grand palace.We were dropped at the Palace Hotel, adjacent to the Al-Faw Palace. It is a pretty nice hotel, a little gaudy, but nice. Bob and his staff would be staying in the hotel, the rest of us are staying in trailers with bunk beds. The rooms and beds were a step up from Camp Eggers.

An hour after getting off the helos, we were back on. We would gear up with flacks and kevlars as our flight was taking us out of the confines of the base and over Baghdad to the Green Zone where Bob was to meet with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nouri Maliki.The ride over took us over the hotel where I used to stay, looks like it is still pretty much in tact despite being hit a couple times. After landing the motorcade made its way through the Green Zone, the pool was in the second to last car behind about ten. Upon arrival we had to run to get there before Bob got out of his car, he never waits for us. We were rushed into the meeting where throngs of press were already set up for the blink of an eye photo spray at the top of the meeting. The room was another dark one. After a few snaps we were escorted out.

There was supposed to be another photo spray for the next meeting with the presidential council but after waiting for over an hour we saw a rush of Iraqi TV crews come out of the room and we were told that we had missed it. Glad someone was looking out for us. This was where the day started to fall apart.

The schedule was going through a last minute change after PM Maliki cancelled his sit down with Bob and we were now on our way to the US Embassy to pay a visit. The Maliki snub would end up being the big news of the day even though it wasn’t really a snub. The dude was busy in some other meeting about the horrific bombing that occurred days earlier.
The Embassy was something else. A billion dollar building that resembles a maximum security prison in the middle of an ugly crumbling. I’d show you a picture of it, but I would have been shot trying to take that picture. It is really incongruous of its locale. The inside was a modern glass and steel structure the kind of place you see in Manhattan, not Baghdad. I can’t believe that they spent so much money to build this place.

There was confusion when we got back to the helicopters. Since it was dark and lights aren’t often used we had to rush to find the helicopter that we arrived on. Well, most of us made it. After donning the flack and Kevlar we noticed that the FOX producer and cameraman weren’t on the helo. One of the crew went to try and locate them to no avail. As we lifted off I couldn’t help thinking that we had broken the golden rule to leave no man behind. I expected to look down and see the scene from Platoon when Willem Dafoe was running across the field being shot by the enemy. Thankfully, the FOX guys made it back to Camp Victory where they received more than their fair share of ribbing.

Scrubbedistan

2009-12-17T12:21:00.000-08:00

A light snow fell as I walked to the mess hall in the pre-dawn darkness. This weather would threaten our planned trip to helo to a forward operating base near Kabul and our hour long flight to Kandahar on a C-17 where Gates would meet with troops. We would have to wait and see how the day panned out, but it wasn’t looking good.
We geared up and got into the motorcade about 9 am and moved over to the airport. Gates came later with Matt Lauer in tow, they had some arranged interview that they were going to try and pull off in the helicopter on our way to FOB Black Horse. The helicopters had not yet arrived by the time Gates had arrived, so plans were made for the Secretary to meet with people in the joint command center. The room was a dark dungeon with awful lighting, the kind that can never be color corrected no matter how hard you try. He was briefed by coalition forces and then greeted every person in the room in a receiving line where he shook hands and passed out challenge coins.

Word came the helicopters had arrived so we all made our way out to the flight line where we stood in a misty rain for about 20 minutes before the flight command pulled the plug on the flight. The weather was too unpredictable and they didn’t want to get stuck somewhere if visibility diminished. The C-17 flight to Kandahar was also scrubbed for similar concerns. Our day was shot. The events that were scheduled would have made for nice pictures, now we had nothing.
Staff scrambled to set up more things for the Secretary to do. We made a break for lunch before heading to a NATO aviation training facility where Gates met with NATO forces that were being trained in piloting and maintenance of aircraft. He toured a Russian-made helicopter and a large transport plane before doing a interview on the tarmac with CBS News. Matt Lauer ever got to do his fancy in-flight interview.
Once again, we were back in the motorcade heading to our final destination of the day, the U.S. Embassy. The visit was a last minute add to the schedule, and would be our final event of the abbreviated day. Gates met with the Ambassador and spoke briefly with embassy workers. The staff was very nervous about us being inside the embassy and would not allow us to move anywhere without an escort. We were told that we could only point our cameras in one direction, towards the podium where the Secretary would give his remarks. It was a weird feeling to be an American in the U.S. Embassy and to be so looked over and scrutinized.

It was 4:00 when we arrived back at Camp Eggers. We had a lid on the day, which means we were done. The rest of the night was ours to do whatever we wanted to do which was limiting seeing that we couldn’t leave the base. I fired up my BGAN and sent my pictures from the day. The clouds were lifting a little and the nearby mountains boasted a fresh new layer of snow. It was colder today, but comfortable enough for me to stand outside for an hour while my pictures slowly transmitted.

On my way to shop at the PX, I passed the mob of soldiers who were serving as a backdrop for Matt Lauer and Al Roker’s live Today Show broadcast. The highly staged event had soldiers wearing Santa Claus hats and holding signs near lit up armored vehicles. The soldiers seemed to love it as they were coached by producers to cheer and wave their signs on cue.

With any luck, we will be able to move out tomorrow if the weather cooperates.

Middle East Swing

2009-12-10T00:14:00.000-08:00

It has been over 5 years since the last time I was in the Middle East and I was looking forward to going again. My boss asked me to fulfill our Department of Defense pool obligation and travel with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to Afghanistan, a country I have never been to. The weeklong trip to the war torn country comes just one week after Obama announced that he will be sending some 30,000 more troops to fight in the war.

The trip was originally scheduled to depart from Andrews Air Force base this past Sunday but ended up being changed to Monday which left me with a whole weekend in Washington DC. After a couple days of catching up with friends and taking in a few of the Smithsonian museums that were on my list of things to see, we went wheels up from Andrews at 10am on Monday morning. We are flying on Gates’ Air Force E-4B, a militarized 747 designed to serve as a mobile command post for the president and secretary of state. It is loaded with communications equipment once used to monitor the Russians during the cold war and is so hi-tech that it even has exterior paint that can resist nuclear radiation. It is also capable of mid air refueling so we were able to fly to Kabul non-stop.

There are about 20 members of the press on trip, including Today Show host Matt Lauer, who was being asked for photos an autographs by the plane’s crew. Gates came back to the 21 seat press cabin once we were airborne for a quick media briefing. At the conclusion of his face time with the press, he apologized to us for having to eat the food he likes on this flight. Our first meal was bacon cheeseburgers with a side of Cole slaw, chips and a mini Bundt cake. Very Americana.

I tried to get sleep on the flight hoping to counter the affects of a morning landing of an international flight. I should have accepted the Ambien being offered by the plane’s doctor because I couldn’t manage to get a single minute of shut eye and we had a full schedule once we touched down.

We went wheels down at Kabul at 9am on Tuesday morning. I was expecting it to be much colder than it was as we walked off the plane onto the tarmac. The sky was grey with little visibility. Gates was already descending the steps by the time we got around the plane. Myself and Gates’ photographer snapped photos of the Secretary as he made his way to the motorcade that would take us to Camp Eggers. We donned our flack jackets and Kevlar helmets before getting into vans that were retrofitted with heavy steel panels.

It took nearly twenty minutes to caravan off of the airport property, passing through several checkpoints before hitting the streets of Kabul. People on their cell phones were disappointed when their calls were cut short by jamming devices used by the military when on city streets to disrupt IED attacks which are often detonated by cell phone. We looked on through filthy one inch thick glass as people stopped to stare as we sped by the backed up traffic, piles of burning trash and crumbling shops with goat carcasses hanging in front. There was a lot to take in.

After a bumpy ride and a quick stop at the base where we would be staying, we were back on the road and headed to the Presidential Palace for a meeting with Afghan president Hamid Karzai. After going through security we were escorted to a room where a press conference would be held. The room was already filled with local media and photographers from all the wire services, including a local Getty freelancer. Some 30 video cameras lined the riser at the back of the room. Who knew that Kabul had so many TV stations. The presser was dull and we were restricted from moving around the room which made it difficult to get anything interesting. I could feel the fatigue setting in already as I jostled with the other photographers. It was only 11:30 and I was starting to fade.We were scheduled to fly to our next event aboard 4 helicopters. The trip was canceled due to low visibility so we just went back to Camp Eggers. Back at camp we waited to hear from the Secretary’s staff about a possible late afternoon movement that never came to fruition. The rest of the day was ours. I filed my pictures, browsed the PX and got comfortable in our basement room of what appear to be kid’s bunk beds. My head hit the pillow at 5:30 and I was out. I woke up a few hours later and went right back to bed. I tossed and turned a little bit as the room filled with the loud snores of 11 men which often resembled the low rumble of a fog horn accompanied by a gear grinding Yugo with no muffler. Despite the noise, I ended up sleeping almost 12 hours. My body needed it.

Oil And Water

2009-10-30T18:25:00.000-07:00

What a crazy week for breaking news in the San Francisco Bay Area. First that whole bridge thing happened, which by the way has not been fixed as of Friday afternoon. Then a ship carrying a load of Gavin Newsom’s hair product sprung a leak in the bay making it impossible to for Gavin to make public appearances thus forcing “The Gav” to drop out of the race for California Governor. Well, I can’t confirm that the ship was carrying his hair stuff, but he did indeed drop out of the governor’s race. Poor Gav.
Today started out looking like just another day. Nothing was really going on, seemed like it was going to be a light day. Then I got a call from Rick Romagosa over at the Chronicle checking to see if I had heard about the oil spill in the bay and wanted to know if I would be going up to shoot some aerials. My mind went back two years when the Cosco Busan crashed into the Bay Bridge (that bridge has had some rough times lately) and dumped 50,000 gallons of oil into the bay. Of course, I was out of town when that happened so I pretty much missed the whole thing. This time I was ready. I got on the horn with my editor Pierce in New York and started to talk about how we would cover this and asked about going up in a helicopter since there were some nice shots from the last spill. As soon as I hung up the phone with Pierce I called over to the helicopter charter company that I use and set up a time for a flight. Not more than 5 minutes after I scheduled a noon flight, Pierce and I were looking at some raw aerial video online of the ship and the spill and we both realized that the oil slick wasn’t that big. At least it didn’t seem that way. We mulled over the flight and collectively decided against it. So, I cancelled it. Then I called him back and questioned our decision and then we decided to best be safe than sorry and I rescheduled the flight. Confusing, right?
The company that I charter with uses Schweizer 300CBi helicopters which are pretty scary to ride in. They are small, almost like a remote control toy. Well, not that small. Every time I ride in these small helicopters I can’t help to think that I may not return. Since our flight today would take us over water, we donned bright yellow flotation vests. That was a little unsettling. It’s not like we would have survived the impact of a crash to use that thing. My pilot Laura and I packed into the cramped cockpit and headed towards the Bay Bridge. Luckily, it isn’t that windy today since this aircraft gets tossed around quite a bit if it is windy. Every time we hit an air pocket my heart stops. I look down and thing about that ride at Great America where you free fall some 20 stories in a matter of seconds. I decide that it would probably feel like that if the Schweizer’s engine died. It takes us about 20 minutes to get over the hill and over the bay. It’s freezing cold flying with the door off. After doing a few passes along the Bay Bridge we head south to find the oil tanker Dubai Star and the oil slick that was supposed to be surrounding it. Unfortunately, the sheen that had been reported by every bay area radio and television station was not visible. We flew around the ship a few times but I couldn’t see any evidence of oil. We did a few more passes along the disable Bay Bridge (nothing like doing two stories at once) and headed back to the airport.
Laura safely put us back on the ground after an hour in the air. I want to kiss the ground but decide against it. Too dramatic.
The oil spill doesn’t seem to be that bad. I wanted to get a different perspective so I drove over to Oakland to see if I could see the ship from the shore. I stumbled across a group of workers from the Port of Oakland who were deploying an oil containment boom and made a few snaps of that. So far, wildlife doesn’t seem to be affected by the spill and there hasn’t been any evidence of oil on the shores of the bay.

Clogged Artery

2009-10-29T13:31:00.001-07:00

It was just a few weeks ago when I heard a structural engineer talking about how strong the new eastern span of the San Francisco Bay Bridge will be once it is finished in 2013. He was also quick to point out that if there were a sizeable earthquake before the new span was finished that the existing structure would be vulnerable to failure. Forget the earthquake, wind is what they say caused a 5,000 pound beam and steel cables to fall onto the upper deck of the bridge during rush hour.
I have to admit, I was totally unaware that this had occurred. I was at home on Tuesday night just hanging out and nowhere near the internet or a radio. It wasn’t until after 10pm that I saw the story. Thankfully the bridge didn’t come crashing down like the one in Minnesota. I would have been in trouble if that happened and I missed it.
I went out the Oakland side of the Bay Bridge on Wednesday morning to check out the traffic impact and damage. Some 280,000 cars cross the span each day but the roads that I was on weren't that backed up. The radio reports told a different story about ths San Mateo and Golden Gate bridges. It sounded like a nightmare.

When I arrived to the bridge, the CHP had every road leading to the bridge blocked with cones. I tried unsuccessfully to get over to the toll plaza to make a photo of the empty toll booths. After meeting with the public information staff at the Caltrans office and waiting about 2 hours, me and two other photographers were escorted out to the toll plaza.
It was a surreal experience to see the dozens of lanes and toll booths completely empty with the exception of a single CHP car making sure nobody snuck onto the bridge. What was even more surreal was when I drove across the upper deck of the western span heading towards San Francisco from Treasure Island and I was the only car on the road. I felt like I was doing something wrong. It reminded me of being in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina when you would drive on the freeway for miles and never see a soul.
Since Caltrans wasn’t promising that they were going to let the press near the area where they were performing the emergency repairs, I decided to find someone with a boat to get me closer to the action. I called my buddy Noah Berger but he was already out on the water shooting for the Chronicle. So, I hung out at the small marina on Treasure Island and started looking around for someone who might take me out. After about an hour a guy named Chad came up the dock with his friends and I asked him if he knew anyone who would charter a boat for a quick trip. It was a nice day and Chad was not too interested in going back to work so he agreed to take me out for $50.
It was a fun trip, even though I don’t really like being on boats. It was also one of those six degrees of separation moments. Turns out that Chad used to date a former Chronicle reporter who I had just met a few weeks prior through Noah Berger. Go figure. Thanks to Chad I was able to get photos of the workers doing the emergency repair. It was a quick trip on a really nice day and I didn’t barf. Not a bad day.

Weight Loss

2009-10-23T15:18:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year I decided that I was going to drop some weight. I started a regimented workout program and closely monitored my food intake. I was serious about the whole thing and for my efforts I lost about 15 pounds over the course of about 3 months. I was pretty satisfied with that accomplishment and as a reward I started to ease back on the working out and strict diet. I started to get busy with work and things around the house and before long I had returned to my old bad habits. I know, excuses. The last time I checked, I had gained almost all that weight back. My most recent assignment inspired me to get back into eating better and doing more exercise.

I spent the better part of this week in Reedley, California working on a story that I am doing about obesity. I visited the Wellspring Academy, a weight loss camp for high school and college level students. After close to three months of coordination with the Wellspring staff, I was given the opportunity to follow around one of their students going through their program. Seventeen year-old Marissa Hamilton from Seattle, Washington arrived at Wellspring two months ago and weighed in at 340 pounds. In the first two months of her journey she has shed over 40 pounds and is on her way to losing much more. Marissa, or “Missy” as her friends like to call her, is an amazing young adult. I commend her for being open to the idea of someone photographing her in what most would be embarrassed of. She is a smart, driven and very positive person. She is one of the best subjects I have had the privilege of photographing. Usually when you follow someone around they are very conscious of the camera and are always asking you what they should do or will stop doing things once they hear the click of the shutter. Not Marissa.

On the first day of hanging out with Marissa I met her at 7:15 in the morning before her and her classmates went on a morning walk. Every day is started with a physical activity and today was a 3 mile walk around the grounds of the academy. For the most part her and her friends just chatted amongst themselves as I shadowed them. Marissa mentioned a few times that I didn’t have to go on the entire walk if I didn’t want to or I could cut across the field to save my legs. The days were long and the students kept busy from morning to evening. The bulk of the day was spent in the classroom studying everything from math and english to chemistry and cooking. There were, of course, a lot of physical activities throughout the day like soccer, walking and kickboxing. Meals were offered three times a day with two snacks in between. Whenever we were in the cafeteria Marissa would always tell me that I had to eat something because if I was following her I had to eat the same food. I had a few meals with her and her friends and I thought the food wasn’t that bad. The buffalo sloppy joe that I ate was pretty tasty. Most of the students might disagree with me.
Marissa will be at the Academy until May of next year. She has set goals for herself and is aspiring to cut her weight down to 200 pounds. She is determined to achieve this goal as a tribute to her mother who died about a year ago, on the first week that she had originally attended Wellspring. She told me that her mother would have been proud of her doing so well at the school and she uses that for motivation. I was proud of her and I just met her. The week was inspiring for me. I got to hang out with a young girl who had a good head on her shoulders with a big future ahead of her. Hearing stories about some of Marissa’s fellow students that have lost over 100 pounds was just amazing to me. I wanted to put down the cameras and join them during their activities. I was actually a little disappointed on the second day when Marissa slept in and didn’t go on the three mile walk. I wanted to go. I’m just going to have to keep that inspiration going and get my butt back to the gym.

Retiring #24

2009-08-05T16:55:00.000-07:00

When I first moved to the Bay Area in 1982, me and my family (long time LA Dodger fans) used to go to Oakland A’s games and sit in the cheap outfield bleacher seats. Rickey Henderson was one of the big marquee players at the time and he always made the game fun. That year Rickey Henderson stole 130 bases. He was amazing to watch with his wide stance, tickling the grass before taking off to claim another base. I even had a poster of Rickey in my room, a Mizuno ad that featured a pair of cleats hanging on his shoulder with glowing cleats. I was a fan. Who wasn’t?

A few weeks ago, Rickey was inducted into the hall of fame. The all time stolen base leader had reached the pinnacle of his baseball career, legitimizing his claim that he is “the greatest of all time.” The following week Rickey would have his #24 retired by the Oakland Athletics.

It’s been a while since I have shot anything sports related. Not that the retiring of a number is actually a sporting event. I was looking forward to using my season credential for the first time. I got to the stadium about an hour and a half prior to the late afternoon ceremony. The last time I had been at an A’s game the place was empty. Tonight was different. When I arrived the parking lot was buzzing, people were already in line to get in and receive their free Rickey Henderson jersey. I believe it was a near sell out crowd.

The event was going to be pretty cool and sounded like it was going to have several nice photo ops. Me and 4 other photographers (Doug Duran, Bay Area Newspaper Group, Bob Galbraith, Reuters, Ben Margot, AP and Fred Larson, San Francisco Chronicle) along with a Comcast TV crew and the A’s team photographer Michael “Z” Zagaris were going to be positioned on the field next to second base. After a handful of Rickey’s former teammates came out Rickey was supposed to walk down a long red carpet from center field to second base where he would lift a golden base above his head. We all discussed how cool the shot was going to be and all agreed to play nice and hold our position, just let the magic happen in front of us.
Me, Doug Duran and Ben Margot laying on the field - Photo By Fred Larson

The rest of the media was kept off the field back behind home plate. We didn’t want to block anyone so we all decided to lay down on the grass. We looked like five guys paying tribute to the great head first base stealer as we lay on our bellies on grass that felt like a slightly damp carpet. This grass was perfect.

As Rickey made his way down the long red carpet, the TV cameraman stayed glued to his side making it difficult to get a clean shot. No big deal, I’m really holding out for that nice clean wide shot of him holding up that golden base. Well, I think I would know by now, if you over think a shot, it probably won’t happen. Today was another one of those days.

Prior to Rickey arriving at the golden base the light was perfect. Just as he reached down to pick up the base, not only was the cameraman directly between me and Rickey, but a rogue cloud had temporarily blocked the sun leaving Rickey in shade and the background still illuminated. The picture imploded real fast. The cameraman continued to stand in front of Rickey and even circled around him leaving very little opportunity to have a nice clean image. Oh well, they said we had a few more opportunities during the ceremony. During the ceremony, Rickey spoke to the crowd in his patented third person speak and kissed a framed replica of his old Athletics jersey. His daughters unveiled a giant jersey on the outfield wall which we were going to have a chance to take pictures of him posing by. We all walked out to the wall and waited for the man of the hour to come stand by his jersey. Again, we all agreed to play nice, let the picture happen and we would all walk away happy with pictures of a guy standing next to a wall. And then the TV guy showed up and was about a foot away from him as he held his golden base and pointed to his retired jersey. In the end it all sort of worked out, just not as great as it could have been.

Four Funerals, No Wedding

2009-03-28T11:32:00.001-07:00

It wasn’t the place to be if you had a warrant out for your arrest. Thousands of cops from all over North America were in Oakland to attend the funeral service for four slain Oakland police officers. I saw cops from Boston, Minneapolis, Nevada and even the Canadian Mounties. It was a remarkable turnout for the four killed officers.
By the time I arrived at the Oracle Arena, the parking lots were about a third full and a line of police cars continued to stream in. A line of blue uniforms snaked from the parking lot the entrance of the arena. A sign above the door read “Forever Heroes.” The entire Oakland police force was in attendance, hundreds of them lined the back steps of the arena as the awaited the arrival of their fallen comrades. One by one, police escorted hearses carrying flag draped caskets passed under a giant American flag that hung from two Oakland fire department aerial trucks. In unison, police officers saluted as the casket was removed from the hearse and taken into the arena.

Fifteen minutes prior to the 11am start of the service, a long line of officers and general public were still waiting to get in. The line would soon have to be diverted to the neighboring McAfee coliseum since the arena had reached capacity. Thousands would watch the service on the jumbotron in the stadium where the Oakland A’s play. In all, over 20,000 people had come out to pay their respects.
Shortly after the service started, I went to file photos before continuing to cover what was expected to be a three hour event. After filing, I made my way over to the Coliseum to photograph the people watching the live feed. Right before I got the entrance I ran into a friend from the LA Times and she told me that she had been kicked out along with the rest of the press. She said that at the time of her ejection, she wasn’t even taking pictures. Apparently, someone in the Coliseum security team had decided to kick out all the press for no apparent reason. This was kind of bad news since there would certainly be some nice images from there.
I ran into Victor Blue and we were chatting with a TV crew for NBC. The TV was frustrated and left. Victor and I stuck around and chatted and out of nowhere a cop from Modesto came up to us and said we could go in now. This was great. Inside, about 5,000 people sat in the shade and stared at the big screens in right and left field. Everyone sat silent, some cried.
At the conclusion of the service I went to try and find a vantage point to shoot the procession of hearses and police vehicles. I had envisioned four hearses in a row with hundreds of police motorcycles making their way down the freeway. I found a nice overpass and waited for them to roll down the highway. As I waited, I watched a never ending flow of police cars mixed in with the traffic. Everyone seemed to be going the speed limit as the cop cars outnumbered the civilian cars 5 to 1. After a half hour of waiting, the freeway cleared and the first wave of motorcycles crested horizon. Unfortunately, the hearses weren’t all together so it was four mini processions followed by hundreds of police motorcycles and cars. In all of the police funerals that I have covered, I have never seen a turnout of this size. It was a site to see.

A Dark Day

2009-03-26T12:33:00.000-07:00

The last time this happened in California was in 1970, the year that I was born. Four California Highway Patrol officers were gunned down in a four and half minute gun battle during a traffic stop. Almost 40 years later, four more police officers lost their lives in similar fashion, this time in Oakland.
I had heard on the radio late Saturday afternoon that four O.P.D. officers had been shot in a traffic stop gone bad. I remember thinking that it was an unusually high number and maybe in fact the report was in error. After looking online I found a story to confirm that number and was now saying that all four officers had died. After a conversation with my editor, I made my way to the scene – 5 hours after the first shots had been fired.

The scene was complicated, as was the information. The Oakland Tribune had first reported that all four of the officers had died. Early in the evening, that story was corrected to only three with another clinging to life. I arrived at the scene of the crime just before the sun went down. Investigators were gathering evidence at the scene, marking shell casings with numbered cards. Some officers just stood there motionless, still processing what had just happened.
After the sun went down, I headed over to the hospital where the officers had been taken. I had seen from earlier in the evening where family members and police officers grieved outside of the emergency room, but now it was quite. A few officers lingered along with members of the local clergy. A steady rain fell as I sat in my car watching as the men chatting when they formed a circle, held hands and prayed. It was a nice moment.
The O.P.D. held a press conference later in the evening to outline the events of the day. The mayor and top police brass fought back emotion as they described the shooting. Interim police Chief Howard Jordan paused a few times as he answered questions, doing his best to maintain his composure.
Confusion continued on Sunday when local media reported that the fourth officer had died but had actually only been declared brain dead. News of the fourth death prompted people to send in donations and drop off flowers at the police headquarters. By 3 in the afternoon, dozens of bouquets flanked the side entrance. Makeshift memorials also came to life at the scene of the shootings. A man set up flags in honor of the slain officers. Another woman and her daughter arranged candles and a poem near the doorway of the apartment where two of the officers and the suspect were killed as a crime scene unit continued to collect evidence.
A public vigil brought out hundreds of people just three days after the killings. People from all walks of life attended the early evening event. Many were brought to tears as city leaders led prayers and remembered the fallen officers. The makeshift memorials were now four times bigger than the day before and people continued to bring flowers.
Just down the street from where the vigil was being held, a smaller memorial had been erected in memory of Lovelle Mixon, the man who shot and killed the four officers. Mixon, a convicted felon and fugitive parolee, was also a suspect of interest in an unsolved murder case and his DNA had matched sperm samples from twelve year-old rape victim. He was also a suspect in several other rape cases, including one that involved an elderly woman. In handwritten messages alongside photos of Mixon, people praised him for killing the officers. He was viewed as a martyr. Knowing the history of this man, it was one of the most disturbing things I have ever seen.

Back To The City

2009-03-11T18:05:00.000-07:00

The first that I noticed when I arrived at the tent city was that there were a few more tents than last week. It has been just 4 days since my last visit. There was also a lot of media milling around. The photos from the tent city (and a segment on Oprah 2 weeks ago) sparked great interest late last week prompting national media outlets to do stories about the people living in the tent city. Over the weekend CNN and Today Show crews came out to do pieces. Crews from Sweden and Australia were out today with more scheduled to come out in the coming days.
On one hand, it is a good thing to get the word out about the struggles of the people that are living out along the American River. But, unfortunately, the attention that the tent city is getting is also raising some red flags with the local government. I found out today that the mayor of Sacramento has decided to put an end to the encampment and plans to kick everyone out in the coming weeks, stripping these people of what little sense of normalcy that they have. It will be interesting to see what happens and where people end up going. The rumor is that the city will give homeless campers a two-day voucher for a local motel. Beyond that, who knows.
I spent most of Tuesday with the campers. I touched base with some of the people that I had met the previous week. I was surprised that almost all of them remembered my name. I think they were also surprised that I remembered their names. I ran into Tammy and Keith Day when I arrived, the couple that had warmed up to me last week after seeming to want have nothing to do with me. It was good to see them. They told me that I should have been there the night before since Tammy had made a huge dinner for them and their immediate neighbors. They are good about sharing what they have with others. I also learned that it was Keith’s birthday. He is 44.
Like before, I spent most of my day walking around and just hanging out with people. I ran into Ben and Renee and they invited me into their tent. I must have hung out with them for close to two hours while they cleaned up and rearranged their “home” and boiled water to wash dishes. They are finally catching up on their cleaning after the heavy rains of last week flooded their camp. The ground in front of their tent is still soft and damp but nothing like the wet mud that it was last week.
By the time I left the camp I had been there for over ten hours. I stayed until I couldn’t see anymore and most people had retired to their tents. Most people get up before dawn to hit the streets to collect cans for recycling. I understand it is quite competitive. A few campfires burned, with some people huddling around them, but for the most part the city was calling it a night.

Just Trying To Survive

2009-03-06T21:43:00.000-08:00

Dark clouds are looming over our heads as I walk along the levee with Jim Peth from Loaves and Fishes, a local homeless advocacy group. Jim is giving me a tour of a large tent city that is home to several hundred homeless people in Sacramento. As we walk along we have to sidestep muddy puddles left behind by recent rainfall. There are hundreds of tents covered with blue tarps are scattered across a green field sitting in the shadow of downtown Sacramento.

I am spending a few days out at the tent city, or as the homeless like to call it, “the wasteland” Jim thought it would be a good idea to show me around the tent city before I went out there alone. Its not that it is particularly dangerous, but more that people are a little weary of a stranger. Jim introduced me to people that he knew and asked some to look out for me. He would often present me as “a friend of ours” which was nice, but I couldn’t help but feel like a character in Donnie Brasco. I was a made man.
A man named Jeff joined us on the tour, he had been at the camp for over 4 years, homeless close to 15 years. He said that when he first set up camp along the levee that there were only a few people. Now, there are hundreds peppered along the banks of the American River. I would later take a photo of Jeff standing by a row of tents. The day after I filed that photo I received an email from a woman that had seen the photo and said that she thought it was her long lost uncle. Her family hadn’t heard from him in years and thought that he had died. She told me that Jeff was originally from Colorado, and that is what Jeff had told me the previous day. His last name is unique enough that it is certain that he is the person that they are looking for.
Over the course of the two days I spent at the camp I met some amazing people. Most of them had been homeless for quite some time, others were new to being homeless. My days mostly involved talking with people and walking around. Some people wanted nothing to do with me, which was fine. I can’t blame them. Others were more than willing to share their entire life story – and then some. The community was very tight knit. People really looked out for each other, especially the elderly. Almost every person I met said the same thing, “we’re just trying to survive.”
One couple, Keith and Tammy Day, had recently moved into the camp after losing the home that they were living in. I approached them as they were starting to cook their evening meal over a small campfire fueled by a pallet that Keith had broken apart with a rock. I told them that I was interested in hearing their story. They were less than happy to see me.
Tammy sort of laid into me about privacy and how they really didn’t want anything to do with me. Keith voiced the same opinion and said he definitely didn’t want any pictures taken of him. I told them that I fully understood and was starting to walk away. Then something interesting happened. Tammy kept the conversation going, and she spoke for while. She vented her frustrations as she fried potatoes in an old pan. I chatted with Tammy and keith for 10 or 15 minutes, we had a good conversation. Tammy brought up my cameras and asked where the photos go that I shoot. After I explained to her what I do, she paused for a while and then out of the blue she said “if you want to take a couple pictures, you can. Just not a lot.”

I would end up spending most of time with Tammy and Keith. They warmed up rather quickly, which I was pretty surprised about. Keith and I joked around with each other, he even offered me one of his beers. I would have never thought that these two people would have opened up the way that they did. They were just nice people, down on their luck and having a hard time adjusting to being homeless for the first time in their life.
A man named VJ came by early in the afternoon letting people know that he would be back to pass out some supplies. VJ, a former corporate executive, had started his own non-profit charity outfit and had been coming to the tent city to give people things like tents and clothing. A mob crowded his truck as dulled out boots, sleeping bags and bags of clothes. While he was handing out things I noticed that he had a small webcam on his shoulder. I asked him about this and he told me that he did live webcasts so people that had donated supplies could watch the tent city residents receiving the handouts.
VJ would tell people to give him a list of things that they needed so he could bring them things that wouldn’t go to waste. I asked VJ about his organization and he said that he just wanted to help people. He organization is not faith based and doesn’t appear to be pushing anything on the people he gives to. After further discussion, VJ explained that he himself had fallen on hard times since losing a well paying job a few years back. His home is in foreclosure and he felt it important to see eye to eye with the people that he may one day join on the streets. I am still amazed by this man’s story.
I stayed at the tent city until I couldn’t see anymore. There is no electricity out in the wasteland, only a few tents can be seen with a flicker of a candle. It was dark – pitch black. Some people had built fire rings near their camps but none were being used tonight. The only light came from a nearby Diamond Almond plant and the Sacramento skyline.
Most people would go to bed once the sun went down so they could get up before first light to go out and collect recycling. It is one of the few ways they make money to buy food. When I returned the next morning at 6:30 am, most were already out and about.

Visiting the camp and meeting its residents was a humbling experience for me. It never ceases to amaze me just how generous people can be that don’t have anything. It is unfortunate that so many people have to live like this and sadly, it seems as if this bad economy and foreclosure nightmare isn’t going to end anytime soon.

Before I came to Sacramento, I looked through some photographs taken by Dorothea Lange during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The photos were of homeless people living in a shanty town. The scene was similar to what I saw at the tent city. There were rows of improvised shelters, people cooking over a campfire. The dateline of Ms. Lange’s photos was Sacramento, California.

A couple links to galleries and stories featuring photos from the tent city:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1159677/Pictured-The-credit-crunch-tent-city-returned-haunt-America.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29528182/displaymode/1107/s/2/

Saint Obama

2009-03-03T20:57:00.000-08:00

Minutes after I filed my pictures I got an instant message from Preston on the picture desk. “Did you buy one?” Preston was referring to the religious style votive candles with an image of Barack Obama’s face on the body of St. Martin de Porres. Shortly after, I started to get messages about people wanting me to buy them for them.

The 10 inch candles have been flying off the shelves at a Noe Valley novelty shop and at the same time have angered local religious leaders. The folks at the St. Philip the Apostle Church see it as sacrilegious. Most people see it as just a funny candle.
It is kind of an interesting story about how these candles came to be. A local realtor was struggling to make ends meet and decided to enroll in a graphic design class. After learning a few tricks he came up with the candle design. Since December, the “Just For Fun” store in San Francisco has sold over 1,000 of the candles at $12.95 a pop. There is also a two foot tall option that retails for $395. They have yet to sell one of those.

Scary Times

2009-02-25T19:22:00.000-08:00

The news wasn’t really that much of a surprise. The Chronicle has been losing millions for quite some time now. What was a bit of a shock was to hear that the paper might actually disappear. Like almost every paper in the country, The Chronicle has reached a breaking point. It’s do or die time. Figure out how to survive or call it a day.

It wasn’t that long ago that the paper was doing quite well. When I worked at the Chronicle in 2000, the Hearst Corporation was in the process of buying the Chronicle and unloading the Examiner. Back then, The Chronicle was turning such a good profit that Hearst basically gave the Examiner away to the Fang family with an added bonus of $66 million as a thank you gift. I guess $66 million paled in comparison to what they would be making with the acquisition of the Chron.
For a while after the sale, it seemed as if their purchase was a wise one. Staffers were traveling and the Christmas party in 2000 was huge. It was held at the Museum of Modern Art. They had fortune tellers, live music, endless amounts of food and drink. Sharon Stone was even there with her now ex-husband Phil Bronstein. It was a real good time.
Then, along came Craigslist, killing ad revenue, and the internet with its free content and the downward slide began.

I can’t imagine San Francisco, a city with a population of over 750,000, without a daily newspaper. Sadly, this could be a reality. It breaks my heart that people don’t see a value in what goes into a newspaper and how important newspapers are to our democracy. Without papers, who will be the watchdogs to make sure government serves in the best interest of the citizens? Who will uncover things like the BALCO steroids scandal? What will we start fires and wrap fish with?

All kidding aside, I think there are a lot of people out there that don’t understand where this type of in depth reporting comes from. Well, if you don’t know, newspaper reporters come up with these stories. TV stations do some, but for the most part it is a recycled story from a newspaper. Same goes with radio. Listen to KCBS on any given day and a good percentage of their stories are right out of the morning paper.
The news about the Chronicle hits close to home for me. Well, it actually hits my home. My girlfriend is the Director of Photography at the paper and with yesterday’s news came the realization that she and many of my friends could be unemployed very soon. It is, in a word, frightening. Even though we have been thinking and talking about what would happen if one of us lost our job, it still is a rude awakening when the possibility becomes closer to reality. A flood of fear hits your body as you think about mortgages, car payments, food and utilities.

I hope the Chronicle can fight their way through this. People need their jobs and San Francisco needs a newspaper.

Lance Is Back

2009-02-13T09:38:00.000-08:00

I realized that my seat belt wasn’t on as Santa Rosa Press Democrat photographer Kent Porter merged onto highway 101 in Santa Rosa, burying the tachometer on his late 90’s Honda Civic. I’m riding shotgun and Arleen Ng is crammed in the backseat sharing her space with a big storage box. We’re trying to get ahead of Lance Armstrong and his bicycle racing team as they train on the roads of western Sonoma County.
Lance is making his big bicycle racing comeback and has joined Team Astana. The team, which includes top riders from around the globe, is conducting a training camp ahead of the Amgen Tour of California which starts on Sunday the 15th of February. Today, they are going on a leisurely 105 mile ride.

I know very little about bicycle racing other than Lance has won the Tour de France many times and that Floyd Landis dude losing his title to alleged drug use. Other than that, I have no idea who most of these guys are. Thankfully, Lance is wearing a different color outfit than the rest of the team. It would be impossible to pick him out of the pack otherwise. The whole team has the same bikes, the same outfits and the same general physique. Are these guys really human?

Arleen (who was shooting for EPA) and I were lucky to team up with Kent since he knows all the back roads of Sonoma County. We would have been totally lost. We also learned a lot about Kent’s career as we drove down windy roads towards the coast. We were treated to a mini history of stories that Kent had covered over the years. He pointed out the spot where he had to cover the kids who were murdered in their car and the little dirt road he took to cover a wildfire a few years back. He said “I did a portrait of a woman right up there a few weeks ago” as we passed a house.

The trivia wasn’t limited to things he had covered either. We learned all sorts of things about the area and the news stories that the small towns produce. The most gruesome was the one about the two kids who broke into a house near Jenner and shot an elderly couple 60 times for no apparent reason.

After driving for over an hour, we finally found a spot to shoot the riders coming up a hill. We found a hill to stand on and waited for the riders to come. We waited about 20 minutes or so before they arrived. At this point they were probably 50 miles into the ride. None of them were winded and they carried on casual conversation as they pedaled up the hill. Within seconds, they were gone. We hopped back in Kent’s company car and raced back down the hill in hopes of catching the pack one more time. After a few minutes of Arleen being quiet in the back seat I asked if she was susceptible to car sickness as Kent was whipping around the turns on the narrow winding road. She said she was fine but would let us know if that changed.

We made it to the coast and were able to find another vantage point to catch the riders one more time before heading back to Santa Rosa. They again passed us by on an uphill, none of them breaking a sweat. I don’t know how those guys do it. I was just riding in the car all day and I was tired.
Back at the hotel, a small group of bicycle racing fans waited for Lance and the team to return from their journey. The riders tried to cut through the crowd and some took detours on paths leading to the hotel entrance. I was walking to the area where they park their bikes and almost got run over by Lance. Kent had to give me a heads up. He came out of nowhere. That would have been a bummer if we crashed into each other.

A Free Lunch

2009-02-03T18:51:00.000-08:00

Who said that there is no such thing as a free lunch? Well, it wasn’t technically lunch, but, Denny’s fed millions of people a Grand Slam breakfast today – free of charge. The chain restaurant delivered on its promise in a Super Bowl ad (which is funny as hell - Nanerpuss) to give anyone a Grand Slam breakfast for free today between 6am and 2pm at all of its stores in North America. Maybe they should have thought of this promotion during the World Series. Grand Slam? Football?

It was insane how many people were lined up at the Denny’s in Emeryville, California. I got to the restaurant at about 10:30 and the line was wrapped around the side of the building. One guy told me that he had been waiting for about an hour. I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure that a free Grand Slam could compel me to forfeit an hour of my life.
I have to give the staff at this particular Denny’s credit, this event was well organized. The line was orderly and names were put on a list to make sure that people were let in at the appropriate time. Wait staff passed out deep fried doughnut balls to people as they waited. People seemed happy.
The waitresses were slammed but all of them kept their cool. They were smiling and laughing and not getting pissed off when I would get in their way, which was often. They even took it in stride that people weren’t tipping. That would tick me off.
The cooks were churning out a record number of plates with eggs, pancakes and bacon. The kitchen was a disaster. It looked like a bomb had gone off, but still worked like a well oiled machine. The cooks seemed to be on autopilot as they slung eggs and hotcakes.
People kept asking me to take their picture. I think they thought I was affiliated with Denny’s or something. The official Grand Slam photographer. One guy asked me to take a picture of him and his 80 something year-old grandma. He put his arm around her and put on his best grin just as she had shoveled a big heaping forkful of eggs in her mouth. Her hand went up immediately. The picture was delayed.
I stayed at the Denny’s for over an hour. The people just kept coming in. When I left, the line was longer than when I went in. After seeing all that grease flying in the kitchen, I bet Denny’s could have made up for the lost income by selling Tums at the register.

44

2009-01-23T18:19:00.001-08:00

It was hard to pull myself out of bed before 5am on Inauguration Day. My body felt battered. I have been walking all over DC since with a heavy bag of equipment since starting work on Saturday. Today will be a long one, at least 18 hours when all said and done.

I am staying at a friend’s house on Capitol Hill so I could avoid the massive crowds on the Metro. Had I stayed at the hotel in Alexandria, I would have had to be up and out the door by 3:30 to get on the first train at 4am. Every minute of sleep will help me get through this day.

After a mile walk, I arrived at the Capitol press check-in. There was supposed to be a point of entry that was open from 4-6am before being moved to another location. Of course, the cops claimed that didn't exist (even though it did) and the press would instead have to go through the Rayburn Building to be screened. So, me and a handful of other press folks went through there. When we tried to leave the building to go to the Capitol we were told that we could not go there. In the end, we all had to be re-screened to leave the building so we could go wait in another line to be screened again. I didn’t step foot on the Capitol grounds until after 7am.
I was in my position on the North riser by 8am. The program would begin a little after 11am. From my vantage point I could see the Mall filling in with people. The crowds were insane. There was also a ton of cops, hundreds lined the streets. The sun was out, which was great, but wind started to pick up and it got really cold. You really felt the chilly air being on top of that riser. We did our best to shield ourselves from the cold. People in crowd huddled together to keep warm.

We had 8 shooters for the swearing in. My position would look at Obama’s back as he was sworn in. In the end, this was fine since there was somewhat of a controversy about Justice Roberts’ flub when reciting the oath of office to Obama. Even some of the less desirable positions can often yield important and interesting photos. Every component of the team comes together for a solid final report.

The crowd started to get excited when the Presidential motorcade made its way down Pennsylvania Avenue to bring the incoming and outgoing presidents and VPs to the ceremony. I couldn’t wait to get this show on the road, it wasn’t getting any warmer. I’m so happy it wasn’t raining. That would have been bad.
The swearing in was quick and the speakers were limited. Cheney looked miserable in his wheelchair wearing his sinister black hat and puffy third grader gloves. I mean, he usually looks miserable but the wheelchair made him look even more so. After Obama was sworn in and gave his speech, Bush gave his a big hug and that was all she wrote. When it was over, still photographers had to hustle to an awaiting shuttle that would drop us off at spots along the parade route while others would be in front of the motorcade on a flatbed truck. As we assembled on the steps of the Capitol, a Marine helicopter flew overhead carrying the now former President George Bush. It was no longer called Marine One for his quick trip Andrew’s Air Force base and then home to Texas. I overheard a few unkind words as the chopper passed.
As we rode the shuttle down Pennsylvania Avenue, we all noticed the bleachers that lined the street were practically empty. It was like a ghost town. Where’d all those people go? Even as we approached my position in front of the White House, the seats were more than half empty. Apparently there was some kind of problem with the security checkpoints. I think people were just frozen from standing out on the Mall all day that they said screw it and went back to their hotel.
A small group of us waited on the roof of the press stand across the street from the White House. It was still breezy and getting colder by the minute. The parade was supposed to start at 2pm but ended up starting close to 2 hours late. We all watched the really nice light slowly disappear. When Obama finally made his way down the street on foot, we were for the most part blocked by the press trucks. It was a lot of waiting for very little.
I was able to choke down a hamburger before putting my suit on and heading to the Home States Ball - one of the 10 plus balls that the Obamas would attend. It was a mile or so trek to the convention center. My legs were holding up, but they were definitely tired. While walking, we passed Richard Branson on the street. He appeared to be struggling with his luggage. It was pretty random to see him there y himself. I later saw Ron Howard walking along by himself. Equally as random.
A cheesy cover band entertained us with Journey and Kool and the Gang songs as we waited for over two hours for the President and the First Lady to arrive at the ball. Shortly after 9, the President arrived. He and Michelle greeted the crowd, had a quick dance and were out the door in about 5 minutes. After filing, I was wiped, but needed a drink. I headed to a Burning Man type party with my pal Allison Shelley from the Washington Times. The party was fun. There were fire dancers (which we missed) belly dancers, a little mini rave room and plenty of art. It was an interesting end to a long and tiring day.

We Are One

2009-01-23T11:22:00.001-08:00

The big official opening to the Inaugural festivities is a star studded concert at to the Lincoln Memorial. It’s a free concert that Obama and Biden will be attending with their families. The concert is a big HBO production and apparently they wanted full exclusive rights and tried to ban the press from covering it. That went over like a lead balloon and in the end they lost that battle. I think they ended up with exclusive TV rights though.

As with any event where Obama will be in attendance, security is extremely high and you end up doing a ton of waiting around after you are screened by Secret Service.

My day began a little after 7am when Mike Heiman, one of our field editors, picked me up at the Holiday Inn. After getting lost, despite using a GPS, and ending up somewhere in Maryland, we finally got to the Getty office and met up with my co-worker Mark Wilson Three of us would shoot the event and feed to the editor.

We picked up long glass for the show and headed over to the Lincoln Memorial. We caught a cab and tried to maneuver through town which proved to be difficult since a good portion of the streets were shut down to traffic. We got relatively close to the venue but still had to walk close to a half of a mile.

Surprisingly, the press security line was real short and we breezed through the checkpoint. It was now about 8:30am – the show starts at 2:30. Thankfully it isn’t too cold today, probably about 34 degrees. Time dragged on as we watched hundreds of thousands of people fill in along the reflecting pool and out to the Washington Monument. I kind of felt bad for the people who watched it on big screens from about a half mile away. It would have probably been better to watch on TV in a comfortable and warm hotel room.

My shooting position was on a riser directly in front of the stage. It was a three level riser with HBO cameras and sound engineers. After much negotiating, five still photographers (AP, AFP, Reuters, Getty and the Presidential Inaugural Committee) were allowed to shoot from this riser through a small 3 foot by 3 foot window. Sounds easy enough, right? Well, there was a lighting technician that needed to see through that window as well. It was like putting together a puzzle to get us all positioned to shoot through that hole. It was tight, but it worked.
Thanks to a tight TV production schedule, the show went off right on time with The Bidens and then The Obamas walking down the steps of the Lincoln Memorial while a military band played, or should I say pretended to play. I had watched them “playing” earlier and noticed that they were pretty much faking it as a tape played. The drummer wasn’t hitting the drums and the cymbal guy wouldn’t actually hit the cymbals together. Bizarre.
I’m not a huge variety show kind of guy, but this show was pretty good. Well produced and only an hour and a half. I was half expecting it to go all night when I heard the long list of people performing. It was a mixture of celebrities reciting stories and quotes by Abraham Lincoln and performances by some big name artists. Most did one song, some did two or three.
Some of the highlights were The Boss singing with a choir and John Mellencamp totally getting down during his performance of Pink Houses. He went wild, didn’t know he had it in him. U2 was good, was surprised to see the whole band, we had heard it was just going to be Bono. I couldn’t figure out what Sheryl Crow was doing as she did this weird, almost handicapped-had to pee her pants looking walk across the stage during her tune with Will.i.am. Ashley Judd fought back tears as she spoke and Tom Hanks appeared to be vying for another Oscar award with his overly dramatic presentation. I can’t even remember half of the people who spoke or performed. I do remember Shakira. I am not too familiar with her music but she is HOT.
The Obamas watched the show from a bulletproof glass box on the side of the stage. I couldn’t see them very well from where I was, but what I could see they looked to be having fun. Biden spoke during the show or should I say he “yelled” to the crowd. Despite having a microphone and good sound system he shouted at the people. Kind of like the way they portray him on SNL.
Obama spoke after Biden from a big podium under the watchful eye of Abraham Lincoln. His speech was short and sweet. The show finished up with the Boss and doing their rendition of “This Land is Your Land” followed by all of the celebs returning to the stage to meet and greet Obama.
After we packed up all of our gear and finished filing pictures we walked close to two miles back to the office. This was the start of many days of walking with tons of equipment since the city was become more and more closed off.

SFO - DCA

2009-01-22T11:48:00.000-08:00

It was like a slap in the face the second I walked out of the terminal at National Airport. The cab driver told me that it was eight degrees – felt colder than that. It’s quite the contrast to the unseasonably high temperatures that I left behind in San Francisco. I hope it warms up before Tuesday.

After a quiet night and a late rise, I made my way to DC from my hotel in Alexandria. My boss booked us rooms in Virginia several months back as Washington hotels were becoming scarce and rates were skyrocketing. Even in Alexandria the rooms were fetching over $400 a night at the Holiday Inn that usually books for around $129. My first day was mellow, picking up credentials and doing a few features before covering a ball in the evening. There were people from all over the country on the Metro. Everyone was in a good mood and having fun despite the frigid weather.
The streets around the White House were clogged with people taking pictures and buying schwag from street vendors. You could buy just about anything with Obama’s face on it. There were dozens of shirts, ties, hats, plates, posters, buttons and even watches. Most of it was extremely tacky. T-shirts with an iron on rubber patch image of the “First Family” superimposed in front of the White House looked like an ad for a new sitcom. There was a button that showed Obama whispering into Michelle’s ear that could have easily been the cover of a cheesy soft core porn novel.
Sound checks were underway at the Lincoln Memorial for the big “We Are One” concert that was set for Sunday. When I arrived, John Mellencamp was onstage rehearsing “Pink Houses” and a crowd of people had gathered behind the security fence to watch. I showed my credential for the show to the Park Police officer and he let me into the secured area. I mingled around and shot a few frames of Mellencamp. I soon realized that I wasn’t supposed to be in the area since everyone had pre-event credentials. So, I hid my credentials and tried to keep a low profile until the crews broke for lunch. It was puzzling to me that I could get through all that security with the wrong pass.
I arrived at the People’s Inaugural Ball to discover that I was the first one there. When I say the first one, I’m not saying the first press person, I was pretty much the first person. Not a good sign. I asked the man at the press check-in if he was expecting any notable people to be in attendance. He kind of looked at me blankly for a second and then rattled off a short list of former NFL players. I took that as a no.
I wandered around the ball for close to 2 hours as a few dozen people filed in. It was a weird setup for a ball. They had a mini flea market in the lobby where you could buy custom made suits and art of Barack Obama. In the ballroom a wedding type band played jazz tunes and a crowd of elderly folks grazed on buffet food. It was dead. It was like a 50th wedding anniversary party at a senior citizen home in central Florida, but not as cool. After 2 hours I left and headed to Old Ebbits Grill for dinner with friends.

Funeral For A Police Shooting Victim

2009-01-08T11:45:00.000-08:00

Most people don’t go to funerals of people that they don’t know. I think I have been to about 3 or 4 funerals in my life that was someone that I knew, like a family member or a friend. For work, I have been to dozens for people that I have never met.

There is no question about it, covering a funeral is not fun. For the most part, media is kept at a distance, and that is fine. But there are times when families allow us to be inside during the service. Today was one of those days.
The story is tragic. A 22 year-old African American man was fatally shot in the back by a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police officer during an altercation on a train in the early hours of New Year’s Day. Cell phone videos taken by people on the scene showing the shooting have been circulated on YouTube and are not a pretty sight to see. It is incomprehensible that such a thing could happen which appears to be for no apparent reason. I was a little late to the service, but since there were so many people there for the open casket viewing I was able to get in before it started. Open caskets services always seem to be tougher than ones that aren’t. Friends and family are more emotional, some can’t bring themselves to even approach the casket. One woman had to be escorted out of the church as she broke down.
The press was positioned in the balcony along with an overflow crowd. People were nice to us, nobody yelled at us for being there. There are times when someone doesn't want you there and things can get a little sketchy. The service was simple and at times uplifting as people told funny stories about Oscar Grant. It sounds like he was doing all he could to make a good life for himself. Following the service, there was a demonstration at the Fruitvale BART station in Oakland where Mr. Grant was killed. Hundreds showed up with signs to listen to a lineup of speakers who demanded justice for shooting. Some signs compared the shooting to the killings in Palestine. Some people had signs taped to their backs the said “don’t shoot.”
I left to go home when the demonstration started to disperse and a small group embarked on a march. A splinter group of anarchist types (who apparently weren’t affiliated to the group that organized the protest and were more or less opportunists) broke off from that march and went on a vandalism spree in Downtown Oakland. They damaged a police car, burned trash cans and shattered windows before parking themselves in the middle of a downtown Oakland intersection. At least 100 of them were arrested for their antics. Of course, as my luck would have it, I was home when this happened and missed the entire thing. I need to figure out a way to clone myself so I can be in more than one place at once.

Bye Bye MacWorld

2009-01-07T20:22:00.000-08:00

I covered my first MacWorld eight years ago. Today, I covered my last. At least I think I did. Mac lovers around the globe have been in mourning since Apple announced that I will not participate in the annual convention after this year. They also let it be known a few weeks ago that their showman, Steve Jobs, wouldn’t be delivering the keynote for their swan song. If that wasn’t enough, Jobs said the day before the start of the convention that he is indeed ill as everyone had suspected. Needless to say, this MacWorld was a bummer.
Phil Schiller, a VP of Marketing at Apple, stepped in for Jobs to deliver the keynote address. Phil is no stranger to MacWorld keynotes. I think he has made some sort of appearance at just about every MacWorld that I have covered. He’s usually pretty funny. Today, not so much.

The program lasted about 90 minutes. 90 painfully boring minutes. With nothing really new and exciting to announce in the way of products, Phil went over the many new upgrades to the company’s software like iLife and iWork. Phil is definitely no Steve Jobs. Even the crowd wasn’t its usual self. Apple nerds have near orgasmic experiences, belting out gasps and oooohs when Steve would reveal a new product. Hell, all he had to do was show up and they would go nuts. Today, it was mostly silent.

He did announce a new 17” MacBook Pro laptop which has the option of a non-glare screen. Many people have whined about the glossy glass screen that they have on the 12 and 15 inch MacBooks. I guess Apple heard the complaint. The only caveat is it comes with a price. You want non-glare, shell over 50 bucks.
The most notable thing of the day was the announcement iTunes going DRM free. Digital rights managed music on iTunes will soon be a thing of the past. I wish I really knew what that meant. I think it is something to do with music sharing. Anyway, that was the big news of the day. I wish it was easier to photograph something like that.
The show was capped off with a performance by Tony Bennett. He emerged on a moving stage that was so far from where the press was sitting you pretty much needed a high power telescope to see him. He, of course, sang “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” to close keynote and end the Apple’s run at MacWorld.

Some Good News

2009-01-06T13:15:00.000-08:00

Amidst all the doom and gloom of late, a few positive things happened on Monday. I covered a somewhat positive story today and friend got himself a really sweet job.

My friend Pete Souza, a talented photographer and a super nice guy, was named as Barack Obama’s White House photographer. The White House if familiar territory for Pete, he served as Ronald Reagan’s photographer during his second term in office. Pete will do a great job documenting Obama’s historic presidency. Congratulations Pete, the position is well deserved. A story about Pete and the new job can be found here.
The second thing isn’t as exciting as that, but it was nice to cover something related to the economy that wasn’t bad news. Since people have all but stopped buying new cars, auto repair shops are seeing a surge in business. It makes sense, people would rather invest 600 or so dollars to maintain there aging car instead of dropping a bunch of cash and taking on a payment for a new one.
I visited a couple of repair shops, both were filled with cars. There were lots of cars in for tune ups and oil changes. Tires were also popular. Fred, one of the owner’s of San Rafael Firestone, apologized that the shop was a little messy. He said it had been too busy lately for the guys to give the shop a good cleaning. Seemed like a good excuse to me.

Ending 2008 On A Good Note

2008-12-31T09:56:00.000-08:00

One of the great things about my job is all the people that I get to meet. I meet people from all walks of life, each one with their own unique story. More often than not, my time with these folks is limited and rarely is it possible to see the looks on their faces when they see the photo that was taken of them. I assume that most people might not ever see the photo that was taken. Some might be surprised when they see themselves in the newspaper. If I do get feedback about a job I have done, it is usually from my editors, colleagues or the PR guy who wants me to give him a picture for free. But, every now and again I will shoot something that touches the heart of someone.

I received an email the other day from a man I met on his wedding day. It was a gay wedding at San Francisco City Hall. It wasn’t a big wedding, just the man and his partner along with his brother - a simple union. I was taking photos for a story I was doing about gay couples rushing to get married before election day because the threat that Prop. 8 would overturn gay marriage in California. I asked the two men if I could photograph them getting married and they both agreed. At the time, I had no idea that this photo would mean the world to these newlyweds.

Here is the note I received from the couple…

Dear Justin,

My name is Wendell and I am one of the Chinese guys you took a wedding pic of at City Hall on October 15th, 2008. I don't expect you to remember me or Jon but I wanted to thank you for what you did.

You were this nice unassuming dude just waiting in the hall with the rest of us when you approached me and Jon and respectfully asked if you could snap our picture because of our Aloha shirts. I would pretty much guess this was just another news story for you to cover, however, the picture you took helped to immortalize the day for us and turn what we thought was not a big deal into a very meaningful day.

You have no idea how many family and friends were excited to see this "bonus" pic of our ceremony as we did not clue very many people in on the event and many reprimanded us for not letting them know about the ceremony in advance. Your picture helped them to feel like they didn't miss anything and after many of them saw your picture, they asked us if we had hired a professional photographer!

Now we have become huge fans of your work and expect you to be a Number 1, most sought after photographer in the next few years to come! We can't wait till you become even more famous than your web site so we can tell everyone, "Yeah, that's the dude that took our wedding picture way back when!" Till then, we wish you continued and ever growing success in your career endeavors and best wishes to you and your family in 2009! Thanks again for helping to make a difference in our lives.

Kindest regards, Wendell and Jon

It is a rare occasion that I get such a generous and thoughtful note. When I do, it reminds my why I love my job and how great it is to be able to bring happiness to someone through a captured moment.

Happy New Year.

Sign Of The Times

2008-12-17T20:34:00.000-08:00

The organizers of the “Put Your Talent to Work” job and resource expo hadn’t planned on so many people attending the job fair. The event, hosted by the California Employment Development Department, was expecting close to 400 job seekers to attend. Two hours into the expo nearly 1200 people had arrived.
Laid off construction workers, real estate agents and mortgage brokers dressed in suits carrying briefcases and folders containing their resumes crammed into the Crown Plaza hotel in Concord in hopes of landing a job. I was blown away at how many people there were. They just kept coming in the door.
Companies like Comcast and Sears were courting unemployed workers. I am not sure how many jobs were actually available but I thought I heard someone say 200 from the dozens of vendors in attendance.
A range of different faces peppered the long line as people waited to get in to the expo. People from all walks of life did their best to make light of the difficult situation. I overheard two women talking, one of them saying that she had been out of work for close to two years. The other would be one year in February.
I can only hope that things will improve for these people and for the many good friends of mine that are in a similar situation.

Gas Man

2008-12-16T21:29:00.000-08:00

Gas Man, Petrol Boy, Gas Price King, Gas Huffer, Mr. Gas. You name it, I’ve been called it. Since 2002 I have been shooting gas prices on a very regular basis and friends and colleagues make sure to poke fun at me regularly. The jokes continually roll in.

I even had a little bet with a co-worker a few years back. At the time, he was shooting a lot of subway security and he thought that by the end of the year he would have shot more security photos than my gas prices. Well, he was wrong. I think I edged him out by 2 or 3 assignments.
There were some weeks that I would do gas prices twice in one week. Gas trucks, prices through the raindrops on windows, tight shots, loose shots, people pumping gas. The list goes on. I even shot gas prices on vacation once. I see a pump and I am drawn to it. It’s an illness, I know.

In 2002 the big story with gas prices was that they were nearing $2.00 a gallon. Every time it inched closer, I was there. People were pissed. Two dollar gas?!?! Since then we’ve seen the price reach beyond $5.00 a gallon in areas around where I live. Yup, I visited that station more than once. But, I never expected to see what is happening today. Gas for $1.59 a gallon.
I honestly never thought I would see gas for less than $3.00 in my lifetime, let alone under $2.00. People are thrilled, everyone loves them some cheap gas. You would think my assignment today would be a positive one about gas buyers rejoicing. Sorry. In case you didn’t get the memo, there isn’t any good news anymore. Even when consumers finally get a break they get dealt a blow. Seems that the cheap gas is all of the sudden hurting the economy.
Anyway, on my quest to find a different approach to shooting gas prices today, I saw a gas truck making a delivery at a gas station. Sometimes you can get something decent from this scenario, so I pulled in to the station. I went up to the guy, who I think I may have photographed before, and asked if he minded if I took a few frames of him doing his thing. He came back with the most ridiculous line/excuse I have ever heard. He said “ever since 9/11 we can’t allow you to take photos of the gas truck or the operation.” He went on to say “if we see people taking photos we are supposed to call the cops.”
I stood there for a second trying to understand. I almost started laughing. My better judgment prevailed. I asked if he was sure about this policy since it was the first I had heard of it and had shot these trucks several times in the past without incident. I’ve actually had some good conversations with gas truck drivers.
This line is becoming all too popular with police and other security types and it really bothers me. Yes, 9/11 was terrible but do we really need to use that day as an excuse to try and block people from taking photographs of bridges, buildings, gas trucks and popular tourist sites? Even worse, do people really need to be detained and in some cases arrested for doing so? There are way too many cases of this.

One thing I can say is that “ever since 9/11” I have shot a ton of gas price pictures.

Product Review - Think Tank Shape Shifter Backpack

2008-12-07T15:19:00.000-08:00

It was back in July when I first laid eyes on prototype of Think Tank Photo’s newest bag – the Shape Shifter expandable backpack. E.P.A. photographer John Mabanglo and I were attending one of our last design board meetings with Think Tank founders Doug Murdoch, Kurt Rogers and Deanne Fitzmaurice when Doug surprised us with the then unnamed backpack. John and I were smitten with this bag and we wanted to get our hands on one as soon as possible.

Luck came my way in early September when I was fortunate to receive a pre-production Shape Shifter. For the past three months I have been using it on a daily basis and am more than happy with this backpack.
As a news photographer who has to shoot and file on the run, this bag fits my needs perfectly. It is great when I have to go on the subway, plane or some other mode of public transport to an assignment and I don’t want to have cameras dangling from my shoulders. When I’m ready to work I don’t have to go through my assignment with a bulky empty backpack (like the Airport Antidote) on my back. No more knocking people over with my empty Antidote as I try to move through a crowd. Obviously, this won’t be a good fit for everyone since it is a relatively small backpack that won’t accommodate the long glass needed to shoot sports or wildlife. It is definitely geared towards a photojournalist or documentary photographer.
Here’s how it works. The backpack expands and compresses by way of a zipper that creates room to store your cameras (2 bodies and up to 3 lenses) when expanded. Your camera gear is held in five neoprene pouches that cinch at top with bungees. The laptop compartment has a removable Artificial Intelligence laptop case that can hold up to a 17 inch laptop and is included to add a little more protection. I haven’t used the case since the compartment has more than enough padding on its own.
The camera section gets a little tight when all of the pouches are loaded with cameras and lenses, but everything fits. I have been using mine with 2 bodies and 3 lenses, the 70-200, 24-70 and 16-35. The actual production models will be a little bit bigger to accommodate Nikon cameras and lenses, which are a tad bit longer than Canon. This should remedy the space issue. Also inside the camera section are two large mesh pockets that have zippers. Good for storing credentials, cards, pens and maybe condoms if you’re planning on getting lucky after your evening assignment.

There are even more pockets on the outside of the bag. The top part of the outside opens up to a good place to store your card reader, card wallet, air cards, notepad, cables and other gadgets. There is quite a bit of space in this storage area. Directly below is an even larger area that expands with even more zippered pockets. I haven’t used this area yet – I just don’t carry that much stuff. But, it’s good to know that they are there.

The padding feels nice on the back with a large area that allows air to flow through so you don’t get too hot with the backpack on. I’ve worn it out and about on warm days and never felt like my back was overheating like it does while wearing other backpacks. There is a support belt to use with heavy loads that easily tucks away into a pouch on the bottom or can be removed entirely when you don’t need the support. I really like this feature. There is nothing worse than dangling straps.

Do you like numbers? Here’s how the Shape Shifter adds up.

Outer Dimensions When Expanded:20”H x 12.5”W x 7”D”

Outer Dimensions When Compressed:20”H x 12.5W” x 3”D

Laptop Compartment Inner Dimensions:19” H x 12”W x 1.5”D

Weight:3.75 lbs

The Think Tank designers have hit a home run with this well thought out bag. The compression and contraction design definitely makes it a very versatile and unique. Like I said, it won’t suit the needs of every photographer out there, but it marriage made in heaven for newspaper, wire and documentary photographers. I also think it would be a great bag to take on vacation so you aren’t walking around the Venice canals displaying all of you precious camera gear. Definitely take a look at this bag which is on sale now for $249.

More information can be found HERE.

The Dealership

2008-12-05T18:08:00.000-08:00

Have you bought a new car lately? Probably not. With the economy in the tank, nobody seems to be buying anything, let alone a new car. My latest economy driven (no pun intended) assignment was to cover the decline of the new car dealership. Several Bay Area dealers have shut their doors in the past few months with many more poised to follow suit. Ellis Brooks Chevrolet, a San Francisco institution, decided recently to stop selling new cars before the end of the year and focus on selling used cars. Used cars turn a better profit than new ones. Ellis Brooks has been in the car business since 1939.
I spent close to 3 hours hanging around the dealership. In that time, only one customer came in. Just browsing, didn’t buy anything. The phone rang periodically. They had 11 calls the previous day. I chatted with the owner, John Brooks, who said they just can’t turn the profits that they used to selling new cars. The best they can get is a couple of hundred dollars over invoice and people are usually not even happy with that. Plus, nobody is buying them. SF Mayor Gavin Newsom even snubbed the local dealership and went out of the city to buy his Hybrid SUV. What's up with that Gav?
I had never thought of it before, but John told me that auto dealers are one of the only sales based businesses where people demand to know how much the product cost the dealer to acquire. We don’t ever question those Nike sneakers that probably cost eight bucks to make but sell for $150 or the bed that costs over a thousand bucks but probably costs a fraction of that to make. We just pay it. But when we buy a car, we need to know exactly what the dealer paid for it so we can throw them a few dollars over that price. That seems a little lame.
Time seemed to stand still in the showroom. The salesman named Bobby sat at his desk at the end of a row of empty desks. He worked the phones – nothing doing. It was eerily quite. Back in the day, dealerships like Ellis Brooks would sell 3,000 cars a year. Now they sell 300 if they’re lucky. Dealers are doing all they can to survive. Some have even discontinued the free coffee for employees and customers - anything to save a buck. It seems that it will only get worse before it gets better. If you live in SF and need a new GM car or truck, head over to Ellis Brooks before Decemeber 15. After that, no more new cars. They will give their remaining stock of new cars back to the manufacturer.

It's Turkey Time

2008-11-24T17:17:00.000-08:00

Every November since 2001 I have been photographing turkeys on a farm as a Thanksgiving feature. Today was my day to head up to Sonoma County to visit my feathered friends.

When I arrive I notice that the birds aren’t outside today. It’s supposed to rain later and the worker told me that they usually keep them inside before a rain. Kind of a bummer, they usually do some funny stuff when they are out on their little pasture. I can hear them gobble gobbling inside the barn as I put on my dirty boots. I sneak around the side to look at them through the chicken wire. They spot me. In unison, all their necks extend up.
As I slide open the big wooden door I am hit with a heavy ammonia smell. It takes my breath away. The turkeys all stop to stare. They’re confused. As I enter the barn they all move backwards with my every forward step. There are hundreds, if not thousands of turkeys in this barn. But there is still plenty of room for them to move about.

The dirt floor is thick with turkey poop. Thankfully, the smell is subsiding. I’ve only walked about 15 feet into the barn and the bottoms of my boots are caked with the poop. The birds are back to gobble gobbling and its pretty loud. They are funny little creatures, very curious and skittish at the same time. I imagine they aren’t very trusting since they are constantly watching their buddies get whacked. They definitely aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer.
I have found over the past seven years that you can make some funny shots of these guys with remotes. If you set up a remote on the ground and go to a different part of the barn, they will create a huge circle around the camera and stare at it. One brave guy will eventually get closer and all of his comrades will follow. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Today was not a very successful day. But, it’s the only way to get really close to them without using a long lens. You can also stand very still in one spot and have them gather around, but they usually keep their distance. They’re really dumb, just not that dumb. The turkeys make a circle around the remote camera

before moving in to check it out

The shot from the floor remote.

One got pretty close to me today and pecked my foot. Another was pecking away at the Pocket Wizard on the remote camera while his buddy pecked food off of his back.

I spent close to two hours with the turkeys today. It gets harder and harder to shoot these little guys, especially when they are inside. It is challenging on many fronts. The light is sometimes pretty bad and it is increasingly difficult to do something different from last time. I mean, they’re just turkeys they don’t do much other than stand around, eat, poop and gobble gobble. Nevertheless, I love coming up and hanging with them and then eating one of their cousins a few days later.

Two Days In Rio

2008-11-21T17:11:00.000-08:00

At first glance, it is just like any other small town in America and for the most part, it is. But, Rio Vista, California has fallen on hard times and like many cities and towns across the country, they are on the brink of filing for bankruptcy.
I’ve been in Rio Vista for the last two days. What a cool little town. Situated on the Sacramento River in the California Delta with a population just under 8,000 (up almost 60 percent since 2000) the town is as Americana as it gets. There is a little downtown main street with cool old signs, coffee shops and of course, American flags. The people are really nice, very proud hard working people. I even met the police chief over at Raul’s Striper coffee shop – a very bass fishing oriented establishment. I went up to the chief, cameras dangling off my shoulders and introduced myself as a photographer. He immediately asked “are you sure?” Wise ass.
I spent most of the first day checking things out, trying to figure out how to illustrate a story about a town that is going bankrupt. A few of the contributing factors to the town’s demise was an enormous increase in foreclosures and a proposed 750 home housing development that was to be built by homebuilder Shea, but they pulled the plug on it due to lack of interest.
The Shea housing development was very surreal. It is a very big piece of property that has streets, sidewalks, street lamps and stop signs – but only 10 vacant houses. I would guess that the property had to be at least a half mile square. Empty. It was a little creepy. It was hard to really get the full perspective of it from the ground, so I hired a guy named Ira with a little Cesna to take me up for a better look.
Ira is a retired Army pilot who now teaches people how to fly at the Rio Vista airport. He took me up in his tiny little two-seater plane that he says he bought on eBay for $18000. It was a quick half hour flight that set me back a whopping $50. Fifty bucks! Totally unheard of. I gave him ten extra because I have never hired an aircraft that cost less than at least $275.
On the second day out I found one of the coolest bars that I have ever been to. I had passed by Foster’s Bighorn several times the day before, but from the outside it just looked like any old bar. I probably would have never gone in if I hadn’t run into Contra Costa Times photographer Dan Rosenstrauch who was outside talking to the manager. Dan was in town doing the same thing I was doing, trying to figure out how to make a picture for this story. After chit chatting outside, the manager invited us inside. Wow. I had no idea. This place was way cool. A total retro bar that had over 300 taxidermy animals and animal heads. It was unreal. They had every kind of animal imaginable. There was even an Elephant and a Giraffe. I’m not a hunter nor do I think about killing animals, but this place was pretty damn amazing. You had a weird feeling with all those animals looking down on you. I need to go back and have a bison burger and a brew. Even if you are a vegetarian and don’t like hunting, check this place out. It’s like a museum with beer.

Protesting Prop 8

2008-11-16T11:43:00.000-08:00

Opponents of Prop 8 have been protesting in the streets since the measure passed in last week’s general election. Saturday was a big day of protests throughout the Bay Area and the United States. I covered the big rally in San Francisco that drew thousands to San Francisco City Hall. It was a gorgeous day in the City with temperatures nearing 80 degrees. Is this really the middle of November?It’s amazing that so many people from all over the world have come out to support this cause. Although, I’m not sure how much it will help in the end. One thing for sure, there will certainly be a long and arduous court battle over this which means I will be covering many days of court hearings in the coming months. As Rodney King once said “can’t we all get along?”

The Choo Choo

2008-11-12T12:32:00.000-08:00

Driving around the Chicago suburbs, Des Plaines to be exact, looking for signs to take pictures of, I passed by a cool looking hamburger stand. If you know me, you know I love hamburgers. I am also a fan of cool retro burger joints. I made note of the location to return later for lunch.

I made it back to the Choo Choo, Burgers on Wheels, at about 2:30. When I had passed by it earlier in the day, I thought it was kind of cool that it had a railroad theme. One thing I didn’t think of was that kids like trains. Well, when I walked in I realized that this place was like a 1950’s version of Chuck E. Cheese, sans the life sized rodents walking around.
I decided to suck it up and have lunch there even though there was a birthday party going on for an eight year-old. The kids seemed all hyped up on sugar or something. They were running around, blowing train whistles and playing on a mechanical train in the corner. There were probably 20 people in the small restaurant, 4 were adults.
The food was simple, burgers and fries. The quality was similar to what you would get at the county fair, nothing special. Your order arrives via the electric train that loops between the kitchen and the counter. The train stops right in front of you but I could not see anyone controlling it. How do they do it? The kiddie party started getting a little raucous when the train delivered cupcakes with train whistles on top for the birthday boy. The waitress plugged in a CD that sang happy birthday. While the song played, the staff rang bells and tooted bigger train whistles. What the hell am I doing here?
I tried to eat as fast as possible. I am not in my element. What I thought was going to be a cool experience is turning into a nightmare. More cupcakes are coming down the rails, just what these kids need, more sugar. A mob is climbing on the mechanical train ride thing despite the notice above it that says “only two people at a time.” The moms are not happy as they extract three kids from the train. I need to get out of here, the shrieking is hurting my ears.

If you have kids that like trains and you are ever in Des Plaines, Illinois, check out the Choo Choo. If you don’t fit that profile, you might want to reevaluate your options.

A First Time For Everything

2008-11-08T10:12:00.000-08:00

After two days of closed meetings, President-elect Obama made his first appearance. His highly anticipated first official press conference since being elected would follow a meeting with his economic advisory board. Finally, a chance to get a decent photo of this guy. We had been staking out his office for a couple of days with little luck.

The presser was being held in the basement of the Hilton Hotel, which is conveniently located across the street from where I am staying. An easy commute. The place was packed when I got there. There had to be a couple hundred people jammed into the room with many that couldn’t get in. There was media from all over the world, I heard French, Japanese and Spanish being spoken.

A podium was set up in front of flags with a placard that said “The Office of the President Elect”. Of course, everyone posed for pictures in front of that, including me. I’m such a dork.

It was a simple setup, main riser and a cut. I got the cut and Scott took the main. I set up a remote, which of course didn’t work very well. There was one good frame that would have been great if it was actually in focus.
Obama seemed surprised when the press corp came to their feet when he arrived at the press conference. I guess he was used to the press conferences on the trail where the press didn’t show that kind of respect. Biden and Rahm Emanuel were with him along with a dozen of his economic advisors. Biden didn’t say a word during the presser. I’m sure if Palin had been there she would have asked to give a speech, just like she asked to do before McCain gave his concession speech on Tuesday. Is she really that clueless or is that just the cowardly gotcha elite media makin stuff up again. Before taking a few questions from the press, Obama made a statement that he read directly from notes. It wasn’t like his stump speeches that he could rattle off from memory. It wasn’t the most eloquent of speeches. But, I don’t think anyone was expecting a great moment in presidential (elect) speeches. Maybe they were, what do I know?
The Q&A session was brief, nine questions in all. All of the questions were on important topics like the war and the economy. All except one which was about what kind of dog the first family was going to get. Forget about all those daunting issues that he faces, lets talk puppies. That’s when Obama called himself a mutt when referring to adopting a dog from the pound. And with that, 19 minutes after he started the presser, it was over.

History

2008-11-05T19:49:00.000-08:00

I witnessed history last night. Barack Obama became the first African American to become President of the United States. It was one of the most amazing events that I have ever had the privilege of seeing with my own eyes – or in my case, through a lens. By far, the best part of my job is all the historic things I have been able to see. I feel very lucky.

I was one of 7 Getty photographers covering the election night party in Chicago. My day started out before the sun came up as me and my co-worker Scott Olson went to the polling site where Obama would be voting. Upon returning to the hotel, me and the rest of the team gathered our equipment and walked over to the site. We did final tweaking on our remotes and did final tests. And then we waited. We were hoping that we wouldn’t have a repeat of 2004 when we waited until 4:00 am only to be told that the election was too close to call and the event was canceled.

The day could not have been more perfect. A balmy seventy degree day cooled off to a comfortable evening. No freezing cold wind or rain. Were we really in Chicago? An estimated 240,000 filled Grant Park and the surrounding streets.
My position was a floor position, which meant I was shooting from the middle of the crowd at Grant Park. The small number of photographers that were given floor passes had to move fast to stake out positions as the general public flooded in. Me and my pals Shannon Stapleton (Reuters) and David Guttenfelder (AP) staked out a few spots and let the crowd fill in around us. We all had turtle stools so we stood a little taller than the crowd. The people were incredibly cool with us being there. We had feared an angry backlash and were pleasantly surprised with how accommodating people were.
I teetered on small platform of that turtle stool from about 6:30 p.m. until Obama came on stage at 11:00 p.m. My legs and knees started to hurt after the fourth hour. The weight of my cameras was brutal on my back. I couldn’t move with the crowd so tight. We watched election results roll in on a live feed of CNN. The crowd alternated between boos when McCain would win a state and thunderous cheers when Obama would win. Even though my body was aching, I was energized. This was a very cool moment in time.
It was a surprise to everyone in the crowd when CNN projected that Obama had won the election. It was close at that point and nobody was expecting it to be called to soon. The emotion that followed that announcement was unlike anything I had ever seen. People Cheered. People cried. They hugged each other and laughed. There wasn’t a face in the crowd that didn’t have a smile on it. One woman who had traveled from Columbia to be at the event stood there with tears running down her face saying “that’s my president, that’s our president.” Yes we can was being chanted and was soon changed to “Yes we did.”
Obama took to the stage at exactly 11 p.m. Barack was introduced with the new First Family. He and Michelle walked out with their two daughters to greet the crowd. It was a surreal moment. There was no music, just cheering. I kept expecting music to start blaring over the loudspeakers. It never did. Shooting from our position proved challenging as we were blocked by the thousands of small American flags that were passed out just prior to the speech. We knew this would be a tough spot to shoot from, but it all worked out in the end. It was amazing how fast the crowd thinned out once the short speech was over. Some stayed behind and danced in groups and waved campaign posters. It was like a scene out of the sixties. It is a day I will never forget.

The Zeppelin

2008-10-28T16:20:00.000-07:00

Whatever you do, don’t call it a blimp. It’s a zeppelin, and today I got to ride in one. Yes, a zeppelin, like the Hindenburg, but no crashing and burning on my journey.

The zeppelin belonging to the company Airship Ventures arrived in the Bay Area this week and will soon be offering one and two hour tourist flights. They are hoping that people will be lining up to pay $495 an hour to ride the big helium-filled airship. Cool idea, but have they been tuned into the financial news lately? It could be a real tough sell.

Today is media day and Airship Ventures is allowing members of the press to embark on a 20 minute flight around the airstrip at Moffett Field. After a brief safety meeting that was similar to what you get on a commercial flight, we were on our way to the tarmac.
The thing is massive, the biggest zeppelin in the world as a matter of fact. We were standing on the tarmac when it came in for a landing right over our heads. It’s really quiet, not like a helicopter. The cabin, I guess that’s what it is called, has huge panoramic windows and seats 15 passengers. When you board the thing it’s like getting onto a boat in rough seas. The wind pushes it around and you have to anticipate that or you might fall flat on your face. That usually happens to me, but not this time.
Once in my seat, I felt like I was in a fish tank. The windows are huge. You have really great unobstructed views. When we were all in our seats and belted in, we lifted off. Our two pilots, one who is the only female zeppelin pilot in the world and the other a German named Fritz, hit buttons and pulled levers as we quickly gained altitude. The plan was to do a few loops around the airfield and possibly a little further. This plan was thwarted when a local TV reporter wanted to do some stupid gimmicky in-flight live interview with the CEO that required us to be close to his live truck so he could transmit the signal. We ended up hovering for about 20 minutes just above our takeoff point. Thanks a lot. None of the other 13 people wanted to fly around. No, really. It’s all about you.
After the talking head got his interview out of the way we managed to get about 10 minutes of actual flying time. The thing is smooth and the views are incredible. I’m not sure that I would shell out the serious coin that they are asking for these flights, so I’m glad I got to ride along for free. I bet it would be really nice to fly over the city at night.

Getting Beat in Paradise

2008-10-27T13:11:00.000-07:00

The somber looking Obama arrived at around 7:30 on Thursday night. He’s here in Hawaii to visit his ailing grandmother. Many think it will be the last time that he sees her since she is gravely ill. Since it is highly unlikely that the traveling press pool will see him during his visit, we all blast him with our flashes as he walks off of his plane in the dark. Nothing like a direct flash picture. Pretty.
The traveling press pool is comprised of three stills, me AP and Reuters. Our coverage is primarily protective coverage, you know, just in case something major happens. There are no scheduled public events during this trip, he’s only here to see his grandmother.

From the airport, the motorcade went directly to his grandmother’s house and Obama’s car went down into an underground parking garage, eluding the line of TV cameras out front awaiting his arrival. There were a couple dozen people standing across the street, some with signs, others pointing up at the top floors of the apartment building where Obama’s grandma lives. Unfortunately for all of them, they wouldn’t be seeing Obama tonight.
Have you ever had one of those days at work when things just don’t go the way you wished they had? Well, that was my Friday.

Friday started out early with a 6:30 am call time for the pool. The motorcade went back to the apartment complex where we would sit out front for most of the day. We were informed after about 3 hours into the day that Obama would be going for a walk around his old neighborhood and we (the pool) would be able to follow him for a block or so. This was good, an unexpected surprise since we all thought that we wouldn’t see him until he got on his plane later today to fly back to the mainland.

Me, Alex Brandon of AP and Hugh Gentry of Reuters along with a pool reporter and pool TV camera were escorted by our press agent and staff to the underground garage where we would rendezvous with Obama. While we were holding there, one of his aides said that he had already left and was down the street. We all moved out to the street and sure enough, he was about 3 blocks away.

The pursuit began. It first started out as a fast walk and then escalated to an all out run as Dean (our press agent) prompted us to pick up the pace. We’re all running down the street, cameras dangling – full paparazzi mode. People in cars are laughing at us. I feel as if I am on assignment for TMZ and Paris Hilton just walked into a Starbucks. It was a little embarrassing.

After about four blocks we finally catch up to Obama. We’re across the street from him as he casually strolled through the residential neighborhood. He seemed to be caught off guard as we all came storming down the street. He actually looked a little pissed. He stopped walking and looked around before saying something to the agent that was shadowing him.
This is where things started to go wrong for me. Obama continued to walk and then started to cross the street towards us. Then he stopped, turned around and went back to the sidewalk. He stood there for a minute and then started heading back towards the apartment building. Alex and Hugh were about 25 feet behind me. I was snapping frames of Obama as he walked away and then started to move over to where the others were but I couldn’t get there fast enough and missed a really good picture. Obama had crossed a footpath in part of the neighborhood that was very representative of where he grew up. I had seen this little path when we were running by it earlier. It was a real bummer to not get that shot. Everything about it worked. He was wearing jeans and flip flops, walking in full stride past palm trees and homes in a lower-middle class neighborhood. It was painful to see. Wrong place, wrong time. Sometimes there isn’t much you can do about your timing. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.

There is nothing worse than missing a gem like that, especially when it was the only opportunity of the day to photograph him. I certainly did beat myself up over it. But, you know, that’s the nature of this profession. Sometimes you get the shot and others are envious and vice versa. That is unless you’re some sort of perfect photo god. It’s a healthy competition between photographers that I like but at the same time can be tough when you don’t perform to your personal standards.

Tomorrow will be another day with more opportunities to redeem myself. Hopefully I will have better timing and luck.

Hawaii 5-0

2008-10-23T17:34:00.000-07:00

I have a really erratic work schedule. The first two days of this week started with an early morning assignment followed by another assignment in the early evening. In between my three assignments on Tuesday I found out that I was going to Hawaii the next morning. Do I have any clean underwear? I love that part of my job. The going places, not the worrying about underwear.

Anyway, Obama is heading to Honolulu to see his ailing grandmother. I will join the traveling press pool for two days.

I’ve never been to Hawaii, so this is a good opportunity to see what I have been missing all these years. It is also great that I will be able to cross off another state on my quest to visit every state in the United States. Only five more to go.

Upon my arrival in Honolulu I heard a very familiar sound as I walked out of the airport terminal - the distinctive ringing of a San Francisco cable car bell. Sure enough, there was one of those motorized cable car replicas driving by. That’s a little out of place. The funny thing is, I have probably seen more cable car type vehicles in the past few days than I have seen in the past month in San Francisco. I don’t quite understand. Did they get some sort of deal on these things or something?
My first day on the island was spent reliving the life of Barack Obama. I drove all around in my Ford Mustang convertible visiting things from his past. No, I didn't put the top down. Didn't want to mess up my hair. On my journey, I photographed his old school, his grandmother’s house, the place he spread his mother’s ashes and the place beach where he used to bodysurf. This place is beautiful. I’m not too wild about the touristy downtown area, but it isn’t hard to escape that by driving 20 minutes outside of town.

I rolled the dice on a hotel that I found online called Celebrity Resort. Yeah, I know, cheesy name. It was pretty low rent. I might even go so far as to say that the Final Stay in Denver was a little bit nicer. My room was pretty funny. Bad early eighties white furniture and really bad art. It had a little balcony that overlooked a courtyard with a pool. When I pulled back the curtains the first thing I saw was two really large women on lounge chairs by the pool. I never opened the curtain again. The TV was the polar opposite of my TV at the Final Stay. If you remember, the TV in that room had a picture but the sound would not turn up past 4. Well, this one had sound, but no picture. I am obviously not meant to watch TV.
I met up with Honolulu Star Bulletin photographer Jamm Aquino and his girlfriend Erica for a beer. I think every photographer that comes through this town ends up hanging with Jamm. Super cool guy. I thank him for all of his recommendations of places for me to eat at. Not like I need to eat anymore than I do, but how could I pass up sushi in Hawaii.

With All Due Respect

2008-10-21T15:44:00.000-07:00

Karl Rove is an ass. There, I said it. I’m not denying that he is brilliant at what he does and is obviously really intelligent seeing that he knows how to spin any situation to his favor. But really, he’s is just an ass. Why so angry?

Its day two of the Mortgage Brokers Association conference and Rove is doing a panel discussion with former Senator George Mitchell. An unlikely pair for sure. The MBA chairman was moderating a conversation with two guys with topics ranging from the economy to the election. Needless to say, it got nasty. The discussion started off with a bang as protestors once again stormed the stage and unfurled pink banners calling Rove a criminal. The one woman who got on the stage actually grabbed Rove and kept yelling that she was “placing him under citizens arrest “ for crimes committed during his time as Bush’s advisor.
A few more of the Code Pink women came out throughout the event. Again, they yelled out that they were going to arrest Rove which prompted Karl to quip “you and what law enforcement agency”.
It didn’t take long for Karl and George to turn up the heat during the discussion. It was going pretty mellow and then all of the sudden Rove let loose on Mitchell with an angry sounding lecture as a rebuttal to something that the former senator had said. I overheard a woman in the front whisper to her friend “wow, he’s angry”. The two traded jabs over and over again on every topic that was thrown their way. Rove was right on message with attack. It was like watching the last Obama/McCain debate, but Mitchell is no Obama.
Every attack that Rove waged on Mitchell was prefaced by saying “with all due respect…” He must have said it at least a dozen times, just to give you an idea of how many times he was on the attack. This would be the word to drink by if we had been playing one of those drinking game. We would have been sloshed.

One of the best parts of the discussion came when Mitchell mentioned the robocall tactics that Rove and Bush used in the 2000 primaries to level McCain in South. Rove got pissed about this and flat out denied any involvement with that. Since Mitchell hadn’t said what was said in the robocalls, Rove challenged Mitchell to tell the audience what he was referring to. Mitchell wouldn’t jump in the trap. It was like watching FOC News with Sean Hannity and his way of speaking louder than his guest and trying to force them into slipping up by cutting them off and blasting them with repeated questions. I don’t know how they get away with calling that news.

I didn’t expect this conversation to end up like it did. I was actually kind of caught off guard when it started to escalate to that level. I think Rove must have been beaten up and teased a lot as a kid for being such a dorky looking dude.

You Got Pink'd

2008-10-20T15:31:00.002-07:00

It seems like wherever I go across this country I keep seeing the same person over and over again. Code Pink founder Madea Benjamin is everywhere. And wherever she is, she’s getting arrested. This woman must have a zillion frequent flier miles and a rap sheet longer than Pacman Jones. How does she do it? I’ve seen her in New York, Denver, Minneapolis, Boston, and of course, all over San Francisco.

Ms. Benjamin popped up today at the Mortgage Broker’s Association annual conference. I real snooze fest of an event. I was there to cover the new CEOs of the companies that you and I partially own, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Thanks to that bailout a few months back, we get to use our taxes on buying up businesses. We also have an insurance company. I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be in on a mortgage company AND an insurance company. And I thought home ownership was as good as it got.
Anyway, The Fannie and Freddie CEOs were doing this panel discussion and all of the sudden a woman walks out and whispers something into the moderator’s ear. I was watching this go down and really thought nothing of it. I assumed that it was a stage manager telling him to wrap it up or something. All of the sudden, she turns and I see that it’s Medea. Of course, I had been shooting something in the dark part of the room and my camera settings were not right for the stage so I fumbled with that for a minute. She started blurting out her opposition to the bailout and something about foreclosures. What was incredible about this Madea sighting was the fact that she was mic’d and her message was going over the event’s sound system. So, not only did she get on the stage from backstage, she hacked into their sound system.

It took over two minutes for the security people to get their acts together and get her off stage. Madea is a crazy one, but man, she sure does know how to infiltrate just about any venue.

An Apple A Day, Or At Least Every Few Months

2008-10-15T17:25:00.000-07:00

I don’t know what my problem is. I am always way too early for assignments. For the second day in a row I left the house before the sun was up. I guess I was a little nervous that there would be a huge media mob at the Apple event. The press check-in was scheduled to open at 9:30 so I figured I would get there an hour early. Why? I don’t know. There was about 5 of us there when I arrived. I could have slept for another half hour.

I’m covering an Apple product launch at their HQ in Cupertino, California. Steve Jobs is announcing a new line of revamped MacBooks, just in time for the Christmas shopping season. If anyone wants to buy me one of these new laptops, I think it would be a good gift. Just throwing it out there.

This is my first trip to the Apple mother ship. Looks like a fun place to work. The Apple folks are always really friendly. They even remember my name. That’s cool. The company is obviously doing well, the special product announcements are happening more often.
The new laptops are really nice looking and have some nice new features. The glass trackpad that is similar to the touch screen on an iPhone is pretty sweet. I always feel a little weird at the Apple events when I bust out my Dell laptop to file my pictures. I get nervous, like someone might scold me or something. So far that hasn’t happened. Maybe next time I will bring my iPod to balance things out.
Jobs still looks skinny. Not that I really expected him to be much different since the last time I saw him about a month ago. Maybe he is normal. Maybe he isn’t. Who knows. He did poke fun at himself again by showing a slide with his healthy blood pressure in response to a recent report that he had suffered a heart attack. I don’t know if it is fair to say he is dying because he is skinny. I used to be pretty skinny, now I’m not. I wasn’t dying when I was skinny. So, people change. My weight has changed so much in the past 10 years that one of those TSA guys at the airport in Minneapolis didn’t think I was the person on my driver’s license. He did a few double takes, pulled out that stupid little blue flashlight thing and then said, “that doesn’t look like you.” It’s an old picture, what can I say. California recycles your picture for years.

I’m Looking forward to Macworld in January and more new cool stuff from Apple. Maybe by then I will be skinny again. Steve, any diet tips would be much appreciated.

Pumpkins On Steroids

2008-10-13T17:52:00.000-07:00

Every year they have this pumpkin weigh-off in Half Moon Bay, California. People come from all over the west coast with their pickup trucks loaded with gargantuan pumpkins that they have grown. The mutant gourds come in all sorts of shapes, sizes and colors. From lat ones that look like a blob of gum to nearly perfect orange ones that could be used as a giant jack-o-lantern. The smallest ones weigh in at about 185 pounds and the big winners usually tip the scales at around 1,500 pounds.
The event technically starts at 7am when they start weighing pumpkins – the smallest ones first. For some insane reason I always get there right at 7 knowing full well that the thing won’t end until almost noon. The big prize winning pumpkins don’t even hit the scales until 10am at the earliest. The event rarely ends before 11:30. I wonder why so many people bring pumpkins that are in the 200-400 pound range. Its not like they are going to win anything. If I pulled up with my scrawny little-big pumpkin and saw one of those that is over a thousand pounds, I’d just keep on driving past the event and go make a dozen pumpkin pies at home.
With the likelihood of the event going at least an hour over its scheduled time for completion, Fred Larson from the Chronicle ended up leaving to go shoot a more pressing assignment. Matt Sumner from the Bay Area News Group kept checking his watch as he was in danger of missing his next assignment if the weighing of the big ass pumpkins was delayed any longer. I will give credit to the organizers, they give us great access and pretty much let us do anything we want. Gotta love that.
Workers brought out the “final four” on forklifts and raised them up for the crowd to see. Everyone ooooh’d and ahhh’d. Then, one by one, the massive mutations are lifted onto a scale and people cheer as the weight pops up on a little LCD screen. Some of the farmers react by pumping their fists. Others just stand there and mumble to themselves.
The guy that won this year is the same guy that won last year. Thad Starr of Oregon crushed the competition with his big white blob that weighed in at 1528 pounds, 4 pounds better than one year ago. Mr. Starr’s celebration upon learning that he had won was anything but photogenic. It looked as if he had just got punched in the stomach as he hunched over and half pumped his fists. He needs a jube coach if he is gonna keep winning this contest.

I was eavesdropping on an interview with the winner and he said that he spends hours each day babysitting the pumpkin as it grows and uses thousands of gallons of water over the 4 month growing period. There should be a doping agency that monitors these guys, I bet they probably use all kinds of Barry Bonds type growth enhancers to get these things as big as they are. Or, maybe they are just good at what they do, unlike me, the guy who can’t even grow tomatoes that get bigger than one inch. Mr. Black Thumb.

The Heels Are On...

2008-10-11T11:37:00.000-07:00

Reuters staff photographer Carlos Barria is under fire for taking a photo during a McCain rally that shows the legs and heels of Sarah Palin. On the FOX news website, thousands have charged that the photo is sexist and is part of some grand scheme by the “mainstream media” to suggest that Palin’s only qualifications are her looks. I think that the general public is intelligent enough to draw their own conclusions on Palin based on her actions, not her looks. Some people have said that a picture like this wouldn’t have been taken if Palin was a man. There are a good number of people that have responded to the claim and see nothing wrong with it.

I am having a hard time seeing anything wrong with this photo. The picture of a candidate’s feet is nothing new. I know, I have recycled that photo many times over the years – of both men and women. I don’t remember hearing an outcry from the Hillary campaign or anyone else when just about every wire service photographer lined up her heels with supporters or her husband. Where was FOX news then? Where were the critics? It doesn’t make sense that now, all of the sudden, it’s a problem. To debunk the theory that “this photo would have never happened if Palin was a man” I looked back into my archives to see whose feet I had shot. The list is long. I found photos of John Kerry, John Kerry’s daughter, Mike Huckabee and even a woman named Hillary Clinton. The one photo that is similar to Carlos’ picture is of Vannessa Kerry, John Kerry’s daughter. It was in Ohio and her legs are prominent in the frame and John is speaking in the background. I don’t remember any contoversy about that photo.
The Huckabee photo shows his alligator skinned cowboy boots in an awkward stance at this community center in Iowa. The other Kerry pictures were similar. The only difference between the Palin picture and the multitude of Hillary shoe photos that are out there, including mine, is that Hillary doesn’t wear 3 to 4 inch heels or skirts. I did manage to find this comment about a Hillary shoe picture that was written by a woman. See it here.

I personally think that there are far more important issues at stake in this race than worrying about a photo that shows things that the campaign has highlighted in their stump speeches. Are her hands off limits too?

“The heels are on, the gloves are off” - Sarah Palin, October 6, 2008

Round Two - Gloves Off....Not Really

2008-10-08T15:31:00.000-07:00

I thought the people in Minnesota were nice, but man, the folks in Nashville are over the top with their niceness. Everywhere you go, people are saying hi to you and reminding you to have a good day. Restaurant workers and bartenders actually engage in conversation with you. A bartender the night before described a bunch of local beers to us, even gave samples, and never seemed annoyed.

Today we had lunch at a good Jewish style deli called Noshville before heading to the debate hall. The food was good, at least my pastrami sandwich was. Scott didn’t seem to impressed with his Reuben. It did look a little greasy. A woman and her husband at the next table overheard us talking about the debate and struck up a conversation with us. They were talking about how they were Obama supporters and wished they could be at the debate. The woman was impressed by how we all came from different parts of the country to take pictures at the event. She asked to shake my hand when we left. Damn nice people here.

We got to debate hall at Belmont University close to 2pm. We would have arrived earlier if we hadn’t been delayed by a multi street closure for McCain’s motorcade. We must have been sitting for 15 minutes while Tennessee troopers locked down a half mile section of road in the pouring rain to accommodate his motorcade. Haven’t these cops ever heard of leapfrog intersection control?

With close to 6 hours to kill before the debate started, we did a few final tests on the cameras. The four Getty photographers would all be shooting tethered into 2 editor’s computers. When everything checked out, a few of us went to the food tent to grab a snack. The food and beverages at the debate has been sponsored by Budweiser and when we walked into the tent at about 4pm, the beer was already flowing. First of all, I don’t remember any media event over my career where there was free beer BEFORE the event started. I’ve seen a few where they might have some beer after, but never before. People were drinking cups of beer as they munched on snacks before the main meal was served. Don’t these people have to work?

The second weird thing about the beer in the media tent is the fact that since 1951, Belmont University has been a dry campus. No Alcohol. The University made a one day exception for the campus to serve booze to media mob. That was very kind of the University to be so accommodating. I felt cheated though. I never got to have a beer on the historic day. Damn.
The debate itself was pretty good for pictures. The “Town Hall” setting is much more photogenic than the kind where they stand behind podiums. I was shooting from a ridiculously small cut riser with 7 other photographers. It worked, but it was pretty tight. With both candidates moving around to speak directly to the audience, you had many opportunities to get both guys in the frame.
I usually don’t hear too much of what people are saying when I am shooting so I only caught bits and pieces of the debate. The one thing I did hear was when McCain referred to Obama as “That One” when trying to point out that Obama had voted for some Senate bill. Nice one, Maverick. Obama shut him down later with his reminder to McCain of his “bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran” tune. The look on McCain’s face was priceless.
Both sides must have said "fundamental" a few dozen times. I'm sure people who were partaking in drinking games while watching the debate got sloshed with the frequency of that word. But, in the end, there didn’t appear to be many fireworks or below the belt jabs. McCain actually looked at Obama this time. William Ayers was never mentioned, I guess that's Palin's deal. McCain won't touch it. With the exception of Tom Brokaw getting testy when the two would go over their time limit and not follow the format of the debate, the event was pretty tame.

When the debate ended the candidate’s wives joined their husbands on the stage and greeted members of the audience. McCain left within 5 minutes while Obama and his wife stayed for over 20 minutes. Many members of the audience (who were said to be undecided voters) stayed the entire time. Obama shook hands, took pictures and spoke one on one with several people. McCain must have not wanted to shmooze those undecided voters. Such a Maverick move.

KISSing in Nashville

2008-10-07T23:31:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid I LOVED the band KISS. By the time I was 7 I had probably seen them live 4 or 5 times. My dad was a rock n’ roll photographer and back in the day he would sometimes take me with him to shows that he shot. I don’t think I actually liked the music but was more impressed and in awe of the theatrics. Gene Simmons with his big platform boots, that oozing blood that would come out of his mouth and the big axe bass guitar. I remember I would get scared when he would do the big fire blowing trick. At one show I actually covered my eyes because I thought it would be “hotter than hell”, the title of their album at the time. I missed a cool stunt.

I’m in Nashville tonight and after testing our cameras for the presidential debate we headed to Jack’s BBQ for dinner. When we arrived at Jack’s, there was a big group of people outside the front window taking pictures with their point-and-shoot cameras. We peered over a few people to see none other than Gene Simmons sitting by himself in a booth eating a plate of BBQ. While we waited in line to get our food, we watched as people lined up to meet the 70’s rock star. He never cracked a smile, just sat there as people mugged for pictures. Why was he sitting in the booth next to the window? Attention whore.

The food line was long, when we finally got to the counter to order our food the man behind the counter announced that he was out of everything except pork shoulder and ham. Ugh. We had come to this place for some serious BBQ. Now we would miss out on the ribs, brisket and chicken. Oh well.
After we ate I asked my assignment editor Pierce if he would snap a frame of me and Gene Simmons. We headed back to where he was sitting and by chance ran into him in the hallway. I asked if he would be willing to take a picture with me and he quickly said “sure thing.” Pierce pulled out his camera and started to turn it on and Gene seemed to get impatient and said “why don’t I go take a piss while this guy figures out how to use his camera.” Ouch. Pierce got it together and snapped 2 frames. Gene went to go relieve himself and we went back to our table. I should have asked him to do that tongue thing that he does. That would have been funny.

Another Sad Day For Journalism

2008-10-04T11:46:00.000-07:00

With newspapers across the U.S. laying off staff almost daily, there has been a big push lately by these struggling papers to have readers send in stories and photos to balance out their coverage. For the papers, it’s great. They get FREE content, like all those cute cat and dog photos that I see on S.F. Chronicle’s website. Its not news, but people love that stuff. It generates hits and advertisers like that. But what about when so-called “citizen journalists” send in stories? People with no real training or understanding of ethics in journalism are providing opinion based commentary to sway a story in the favor of their cause or just flat out lying about the facts.
I was appalled to read yesterday that a “report” on CNN’s contributor based iReport.com website was claiming that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had suffered a “major heart attack” and was being rushed to a hospital. This seemingly grave news was leaked and sent Apple’s stock into a tailspin, falling close to 10 percent within minutes of the “rumor” before recovering to end the session down to a one year low.

Are you kidding me? It makes me sick that a “story” (or in this case a fairy tale) on a website that is geared towards Joe six pack wannabe reporters and faux-tographers would be given credibility and be allowed to sway the stock market. Why was this story allowed to become fact before it was found to be untrue? It makes no sense that facts weren’t checked before this rumor was leaked into the financial world. Stories like this need to be investigated and fact checked before being leaked. It is insanely irresponsible for any credible news agency to reveal such a rumor based on some random person on a website like iReport.com. Journalism is hurting and stuff like this does nothing to help our cause.

To think that shareholders of Apple stock took a financial hit yesterday because someone thought it would be funny to play a little joke or to get ahead in a short sale of Apple stock while under the guise of a “reporter.” Hopefully, the person that did this will be held accountable for their actions and made an example of so people don’t pull stunts like this in the future.

If people want to snap photos of car crashes and whatever else they stumble upon while going about their daily lives, great. Photographers and reporters can't be everywhere. Sometimes people luck out with a nice frame on their point and shoot. But there is no place in the world of journalism for people who set up a situation so it appears to be news. It disgusts me that contributors of this nature are associated with professional journalism by calling them “citizen journalists.” Can I be a citizen pilot the next time I fly to New York? How about citizen doctor? I'm sure I can do a triple bypass operation, no problem.

Let’s be real here, these people aren’t journalists and shouldn’t be labeled as such. It is really killing the already struggling credibility of journalism.

Baked Alaska and Delaware Punch

2008-10-03T17:21:00.000-07:00

What ever happened to Delaware Punch? Remember, it was that super sweet grape-like flavored drink that came in a purple and pink can. It was known as the “soft” soft drink since it wasn’t carbonated. My mom used to love that stuff. I thought it tasted like perfume. Not that I have ever consumed perfume. You know what I mean. Now, baked Alaska is something that I have never tried. Where in the hell do you get baked Alaska? I don’ think I have ever seen it on a menu. I do like the flames. Is that normal? Someone should have had a bi-partisan viewing party for the VP debate with these two things served up for guests. Someone would surely get lit on fire by the baked Alaska flames. Good times.

Did you join millions of Americans and watch the VP debate? I was working during the debate, so I missed most of it. What I did see was fairly entertaining though. I went to a few different places to take pictures of people watching the debate. My first stop was at a viewing party hosted by the Barack Obama campaign. The venue was held at a night club which was as dark as a cave. There was a sizeable crowd on hand but I didn’t stay at the even very long since it was so dark, I didn’t want to kill people with the inevitable use of a flash, which I am not a fan of. The crowd was pretty raucous, booing, hissing and often laughing as Sarah Palin spoke. I don’t think anyone actually listened to what she was saying. As I left the Obama event, I noticed people overflowing onto the street at an Irish Pub across the street. They seemed a little more civil as they watched the debate but this is San Francisco and people were certainly poking a lot of fun at the republican VP candidate as she dodged questions and in some cases changed the subject. More pictures of the back of people's heads as they watched TV. I wish they would stand with their backs to the TV so I can see their faces. Would make a much nice picture.
On my way to my final spot, a laundry, I listened to the debate on the radio. I was becoming increasingly annoyed with the “you betchas” and the “gosh dangits.” I understand the whole “wanting to appeal to the working class” but come on. I thought I was listening to Edie McClurg (the woman with the high pitched voice from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Planes, Trains and Automobiles). Man, what an annoying voice. And that accent is getting old.
At the wash and dry in the Mission District, several Latino families were doing their laundry as Palin and Biden duked it out on three of the six televisions in the building. Nobody was watching the debate. I guess it is difficult to follow a debate when the sound is down and you probably don’t understand English. They seemed to be enjoying the other TVs with Telemundo and Mexican soap operas.

Finally, A Campaign With Access

2008-10-01T12:40:00.000-07:00

If you haven’t already noticed, it’s an election year. It’s been a busy year for campaign coverage starting with Iowa way back in December of last year. I’ve been on some really good campaigns, Huckabee comes to mind. Despite the lack of staff and an actual plan to deal with members of the press, it was a lot of fun and the photos were always interesting. Hillary had her shining moments, but for the most part that was one of the most controlled campaigns I have been on since Schwarzenegger ran for Governor. You pretty much got nothing and liked it. No picture for you.

Today, I am back out on the campaign. No, not out with Obama again, and no, not Quaylin either. I am rolling with Cindy Sheehan, independent candidate for U.S. Congress as she attempts to unseat Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Yup, Nancy Pelosi. Cindy is not a fan. You might remember Cindy, she is the mom of Casey Sheehan, who was killed in Iraq in April of 2004. Cindy waged a cross-country campaign against the war and George Bush in an attempt to get people to demand that we pull out of Iraq. Her movement worked for a little while but couldn’t keep the momentum going. So, she made plans to retire. That plan didn’t really stick either. My day “traveling” with the candidate started early. It’s a busy day for the candidate with 4 scheduled events alongside Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader. When I arrive at the campaign headquarters, several campaign workers are using packing tape to adhere homemade and printed campaign signs to the side of a van conversion/RV type vehicle that Cindy affectionately calls “Jezebel”. The workers are all buzzing around and making sure they have everything together for the first event. Cindy arrives at 9:30 with her Chihuahua Petie.

When it was time to go, about 10 of us piled into the RV with the candidate holding the back door open for us. There was no security sweep and no bomb sniffing dog checking out my equipment. I wasn’t told to wear a campaign issued credential or a Secret Service pass. I was confused for a minute. This was nothing like the usual campaign routine I am used to. Where’s the metal detector, I need my daily dose of radiation. The other thing that is awkward and unfamiliar, I am the only member of the press on this bus.
On the ride over to the first event, Cindy sat in the front seat, an uncommon move for a candidate on a bigger national campaign. She hung out of the window yelling to pedestrians to “vote for me” and “vote for peace.” Something else I have not seen too much of on other campaigns. I'd love to see McCain do that. This is kind of fun.
The first event is a press conference. When we arrived, Cindy seemed pleased that there was a single TV camera already set up. Another would show up later. This was by no means a huge press event, but she seemed happy that people had come out. She mingled with people, thanked them for coming. I shadowed her as she moved around the small crowd, while she greeted old friends and even when she went off to make a phone call. I keep waiting for the inevitable “you can’t be here” line by one of her staffers. It never came. As a matter of fact, I never heard the word “no” all day. My friends out on the big presidential campaigns today would be jealous.
After the presser, we all went back to Cindy’s headquarters and hung out. Cindy and her Chief of Staff had a meeting at a donut shop where they bought breakfast for a homeless woman. Our next event was a fundraiser lunch for Ralph Nader. What’s up with that guys eye? One of them seems to be bigger than the other, kind of like McCain. The $250 a plate lunch attracted nearly 20 people. They all munched on sushi, mussels and finger sandwiches. Nader spoke towards the end and complained that he was not getting the media attention that he deserves and asked why even Code Pink wouldn’t endorse his candidacy. I wish I had answers for him. While he was saying this I was emailing back and forth with my editor asking her if we needed any pictures of him. The answer was a confident no. Sorry Ralphie, I tried.
Another thing I am noticing about this campaign is the lack of flesh pressing. Cindy doesn’t seem to go out of her way to connect with the people like most politicians do. I suppose she doesn’t consider herself a politician, but I would think she would be putting herself out there a little more. I was waiting for those pictures to happen and they never really came. Cindy is a funny woman, has a very dry sense of humor.
The last event for me was a rally at San Francisco State University. On the way over to the rally we were driving on the freeway and the posters taped to the side started to peel away and flap in the wind. We had to pull over and remove the half shredded posters from one side of the RV. Back on the freeway we cruised in the slow lane at about 40 m.p.h. so the other side wouldn’t fly off.
At the school event we picked up photographer Marcio Sanchez from the AP and his reporter. They rode back to the headquarters with us in the RV. Yay, more press. I thought Cindy would have come to the back of the RV to conduct her interview with the AP reporter, but she stayed in her front seat and did the interview over her shoulder. Back at the HQ, Cindy worked in her office while we snapped pictures of her looking intently at her laptop. There was one more event scheduled for the day, but I was done. I was great to have such free access to a candidate. I’m sure that will never happen again.

The Oracle

2008-09-26T16:26:00.000-07:00

With our nation in crisis mode, I thought it was only prudent to suspend my blog through these difficult times. O.K., enough of that, I’m back.

I was driving home from an assignment the other day and for some reason I thought of Dan Quayle. Yeah, don’t ask me why, I have no explanation for that. Anyway, I’m assuming I thought of him because of the ongoing talk about Sarah Palin and how many think that she isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. So, I thought that it might be good to start calling her Sarah Quaylin. Alternatively, you could add an “E” to the end of Quaylin to commemorate the famous Dan Quayle “potatoe” gaffe.

It’s been a week of shooting technology leaders that have been speaking at the Oracle Open World conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. The Oracle convention is one of the bigger ones that comes to SF. They shut down a main thoroughfare to pitch huge tents for convention attendees to have lunch and occupy 3 huge halls of the Moscone Center. This year, Oracle has gone out of its way to promote the convention as a “green” event. One of the highlights was stationary bikes that you could hop on and charge your cell phone by pedaling for 15 minutes. The press release about the bikes made it sound like there was going to be several bikes that could possibly generate enough power to help power the convention. I thought that would be a fun thing to shoot as a “green’ feature, so I headed down to check it out.

Well, there were only 4 bikes that I could find. Then I had to wait for someone to get on one of them. I sat there for close to an hour. Some people would walk by (many of them overweight), look for a second, shake their head and move on. Grim.
With no takers on the bike front, I went for my second “green” option, the biodegradable food trays and utensils. All the food at the convention was served on trays made from plant material as was the water cups. The forks and knives were made from potatoes. There were people who would help you sort out your trash into the appropriate recycling bins. I met a “green team” member named John who appeared to be either homeless or part of a rehab program. I had been watching him for a while and noticed that after people would dump their trays into the bins he would take some of the leftovers for himself. He even offered me a brownie. I had to pass on that. One of the sides for the day’s lunch was a barley salad, which went untouched by most. John quipped “I guess people out here don’t care too much for barley” and with that he took a pinch and popped it in his mouth.

The keynotes over the next few days included Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle and Paul Otellini, CEO of Intel. Otellini is one of the most boring speakers on earth. It’s really tough to stay awake when he is on the mic. I would give anything to have Craig Barrett back, at least he was funny.
Mega-rich and eccentric Ellison is a weird dude. The guy is so full of himself. And what's up with that swarmy little beard he's got going? He opened his speech with a MTV style video of his new Oracle Trimaran racing boat. He then went on to talk about it in length. Does anyone care? Then he broke into the tech talk. I never have any idea what he is talking about. I’m not even sure what Oracle does. The tech talk is not only boring, but it is like listening to a foreign language. He went on to announce a joint effort with HP to produce some new server database thingy. It came out of the floor with fog machines going and dazzling light show. Don't ask me what it is or does. I had a hard enough time captioning the photos since it had two or three names.
People pay huge money to come to these conferences, I wonder what they get out of it.

Wino

2008-09-19T17:59:00.000-07:00

Its 1:45am as I make my way down a dirt road. My high beams illuminate the dust from the vehicle a ways ahead of me. I should be in bed. “It feels like fall, doesn’t it?” asks vineyard manager Josh Anstey of St. Supery Winery. I am here to shoot the night harvest of Dollarhide Ranch old vine cabernet grapes. I love cabernet and the wine that comes from these vines is fantastic.
The crews are set to start picking a small parcel of the cab grapes beginning at 2am and should be done by 4am. Tractors pull lights to bring daylight to the night so the workers can see what they are picking. Some of the workers wear headlamps. It always amazes me how fast these guys pick grapes during the harvest. On some of the bigger parcels, a single worker can harvest nearly a ton of grapes on his own. The curved blade darts in and out of the vines producing tight bunches of purple grapes. They drop then grapes into plastic bins and move on down the row of vines, sometimes running to make better time. I ride on the bin trailer being pulled by a tractor. Grape vines are hitting me as we moves through the tight rows. A sticky substance on the vines is now all over me. My hands feel glued to my cameras. Dirt is clinging to every sticky part of my outfit. By 4:30, the parcel is picked and the Latino crew is heading back to their cars. I am far from done with my assignment. I have one more winery to visit which will be harvesting chardonnay grapes at 7am. It’s still dark as I make my way towards Napa. I came close to running over a skunk that darted across the road. A few minutes later a deer stood confused in the middle of the road. It paced back and forth before slipping on the street and then darting into the bushes. I hit a deer once, its no fun. Not good for the car either. At least I was in a rent a car when I hit it. Good for me, bad for the deer.

Workers had already started the chardonnay pick by time I arrived at Artesa Winery in Napa. The sky was getting light, but a low cloud cover kept it gray instead of letting the rising sunlight in. I spent close to 2-1/2 hours hanging out with the workers as they blazed through a big block of vines. My eyes are feeling heavy as I walk around Artesa’s barrel room. It’s dimly lit and really quiet. I watch a load of merlot grapes being processed and the tanks turned. It’s so nice to be able to wander around and see all the different steps that go into making a bottle of nice wine. The people at Artesa have given me free reign over the place.
I am dead tired, have been up for over 24 hours at this point. I need to go home. I fight to stay awake on the drive home. It’s difficult. I get stuck in traffic. Why is there traffic at 12:30 in the afternoon? I make it home safely. I nod off as I attempt to file pictures. It’s comical. I need a glass of wine.

Hike to Photo

2008-09-16T18:52:00.000-07:00

I can’t for the life of me figure out why there is never any parking on the streets around corporate campuses. I have to shoot a fair amount of building mugs and signage when companies report their quarterly earnings and I always end up having to park really far away or illegally in some private parking lot. I mean seriously, would it hurt to have one little strip of parking, maybe a meter. Make some money for the city.

Take today for example. I was down in Palo Alto doing a sign shot for the story about Hewlett-Packard’s plans to cut 24,600 jobs over the next three years. After the hour-long drive, I made it to the HP headquarters, spotted my sign and then started looking for a place to park. No Parking signs lined the streets surrounding the campus. I drove around the block, well past the HP property, still no parking. I keep going and have now made a complete 1-1/2 mile loop back to where I started. Not a legal parking spot in sight.
For some reason I thought I might find something if I go in the opposite direction. That didn’t really pan out either. I headed south until I found a park with a public parking lot that was free. The only problem is that I am about a mile away from the sign I need to shoot. Thinking I can do better than this, I pass the parking lot and continue driving towards HP in hopes that a parking spot will magically appear on some side street that I might have missed. No such luck.

I head back to the parking lot and park my car there. I strap on my cameras and start walking. The blocks are long. My cameras keep firing as the shutter button hits my hips and ass. I now have a good collection of my legs and feet. I t took about 10 minutes to get to the sign. I shoot it in every possible way just to get the most out of my hike. I stand there for a good 15 minutes waiting for something to happen or for someone to walk by the sign. Luckily, a guy rode by on his bike. That was the pinnacle of excitement. I walked around the perimeter of the campus hoping to see something of interest. Not a thing. After working the signs for close to 35 minutes, I started to trek back towards my car passing all of the neatly lanscaped office parks. How do they keep their lawns so nice? The photo essay on my legs and feet continued.

Flippin' Off Osama

2008-09-12T15:46:00.000-07:00

I am filing some photos at a Kinkos and there was this guy sitting two chairs away from me who keeps mumbling to himself. I think he is reading something that he is writing, but he is also making some weird sounds. He’s a relatively normal looking guy, appears to be a business man. I’m looking down at my laptop and all of the sudden he blurts out “we’re so involved in our laptops we haven’t even noticed all of these beautiful women in here.” I look up and over towards him. He’s looking at me and nodding. I look around and there are about 4 soccer mom types. I look back at him and nod. What the hell was that about?

It’s the anniversary of 9/11 today. I’m doing the proverbial anniversary feature. The search for the said feature has brought me to Lafayette, California. There is a privately owned hillside in Lafayette across from the BART station that is adorned with thousands of wooden crosses that honor the troops that have been killed in Iraq. Some see this as a disgrace. Others see the display as a harsh reminder of how ugly war is.
Today, there is only one man at the crosses. Self-described “pro U.S.A.” activist Mark Kirby is standing alongside in a costume that he says depicts Osama Bin Laden. He has Vietnam era camouflage pants and a dirty white t-shirt with O.B.L. and 9-11 written in black magic marker. His makeshift beard is crafted from a woman’s wig and he is using a grey sweatshirt as a turban. He is attracting a mixed reaction from passing cars ranging from the middle finger to honks as he waves a homemade sign on a broken hockey stick that says “never forget 9-11” and a Styrofoam airplane. The airplane thing was, well, creepy. The honks and flashing of the bird were about equal. As I was standing next to him taking pictures a car honked, he said “I think that one was for you.” I told him that it couldn’t have been seeing that I didn’t have an awesome costume.
My next stop was a few miles down the road where the Lafayette Flag Brigade had set up their annual flag display on the overpass across highway 24. Flags adorned the fencing along both sides of the overpass and people stood between them and waved to traffic on the freeway. An audio system blasted contemporary country tunes and every now and again some local person would sing a song. It was like a small town version of the republican convention. One elderly Chinese man came up to me and asked if I had heard him sing. I told him I had not. He said “that’s o.k., you can just watch it on You tube.” He went on to tell me that I “could tell my friends that I met that guy.” If only I could remember the name of his song. Oh well. The event received a lot of attention. So much in fact that on my way home traffic heading towards the flag vigil was backed up for about 5 miles. Glad I wasn’t going that way.

The Skinny on the New iPods

2008-09-10T17:00:00.000-07:00

Fresh off of the political conventions, I am back to work in my town. Apple is having one of their special events where Steve Jobs announces the latest Apple gadgets. Today’s event is at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, a small theatre. Usually, the Apple events, such as Macworld and the WWDC are held in huge halls that fill up with a couple of thousand people. This invite only event will be much smaller with about 300 in attendance.

After sitting outside for about 2 hours with Bob Galbraith from Reuters, we were let into the building a half an hour before the event was going to start. As usual, there is tons of media and we all do our best to cram into a pretty tight space. Some photographers, who I will not name, bring just about every piece of camera equipment known to man in a giant roller and occupy enough space for three people. Despite having a huge piece of property, I am still being hit with their monopod(s).
The show, dubbed “Let’s Rock” starts at 10am. When Jobs came out on stage and you immediately notice how thin he is. He looks gaunt and weak. I’m not going to go as far as Bloomberg News and issue an obit, but he does not look well. Jobs did poke fun at the prematurely released obit by saying that "reports of his death are greatly exaggerated." The picture below is of two frames I have shot of Jobs. The image on the left is from today’s event. The one on the right is from 2005. What a huge difference. His wedding ring appears to dangle on his finger. I’m sure the health questions will be popping up in the coming weeks. An iTunes update was Job’s first announcement followed by a new version of the iPod Nano. New size and colors are being offered along with a new feature that allows you to shake the music player to activate the song shuffle. I hope you can turn that off or else the runners of the world are going to have a messed up string of partial songs. The iPod Touch also had a makeover. New prices and additional memory were some of the latest things to be announced. A man holding a small video camera behind let out an orgasmic gasp followed by a “yes!’ when Jobs described the new “Genius” feature that allows you to hit a button and create a playlist based on the genre of song that is playing. I wonder who he works for. Jack Johnson played a few songs to end the program. Such a laid back dude. I was surprised to hear Jobs say that Jack Johnson has sold more music on iTunes than any other artist. I still don’t believe it. Good for him.
Reporters and guests were now led to a room where they could play with the latest gadgets. Tables were set up with dozens of the new iPods. Jobs and Jack Johnson came by and left after a few minutes. Pretty cool products, just wish the Touch had more memory.

Goose and Maverick - RNC Fianle

2008-09-08T10:16:00.000-07:00

After last night’s big Sarah Palin love fest, how was McCain going to upstage her tonight with his acceptance speech? He’s not really known to have the most dynamic personality out there.

I got down to the hall around 11:30. McCain was expected to do his walk through around 1:30. The stage had been altered for tonight’s show. A short runway led to a podium that they could lower into the floor. Unlike the moveable podium that Obama had in Denver, they couldn’t figure out how to get this one to completely disappear into the floor. The top part of the podium and the microphones stuck out.
Workers continued doing final adjustments to the podium and runway. It wasn’t until after 2:30 that McCain came out to do his sound check. Joe Lieberman came along with McCain, as did most of McCain’s family and advisors. Lieberman was like a lost puppy, he wouldn’t leave McCain’s side. I’m surprised they weren’t holding hands. He had the biggest ear to ear smile. He totally wanted that VP nod and this was as good as it was going to get, he might as well make the most of the moment. Someone tell this guy that he wasn't picked as McCain's running mate.

The cut riser (or pod, as they are calling it) is packed tonight. There has to be about 12 of us on this thing. I got into my spot early since I didn’t think I would be able to squeeze in if I waited until later in the evening. I have so much stuff, I could really use a Sherpa. I'm weighed down with too many cameras and lenses as I try to make it up the steep ladder onto the riser. Packed in like sardines, it was difficult to turn around to shoot anything behind me or to the sides, especially since my cameras were connected to those ethernet cables that were just a tad bit short.
A day after the sign of the day read “service”, today’s sign read “peace.” Hmmmm, that doesn’t really jive with all the war rhetoric I have been hearing all week.
McCain came on stage a little after nine. Illuminated by a single spotlight, The Mac made his way down the runway doing his best to get his arms as high as they would go. He was doing a good job, actually. The arena lights came up and it was a sea of McCain – Palin signs as the fans cheered on their man. It was exciting in a way that you wouldn’t expect from a McCain event, at least one that I have ever been to. Then he started speaking and it was back to the old McCain that I know.

His speech was pretty dull, not that anyone really expected anything different. He did say something about his opponent that none of his other colleagues (especially his running mate) had really said this entire week. The Mac made a very sincere comment about Barack Obama and his supporters, something that reminded me of a McCain from the past when he seemed to be a little more of a centrist. Here is the quote from the speech.

“Finally, a word to Senator Obama and his supporters. We'll go at it over the next two months. That's the nature of these contests, and there are big differences between us. But you have my respect and admiration. Despite our differences, much more unites us than divides us. We are fellow Americans, an association that means more to me than any other. We're dedicated to the proposition that all people are created equal and endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights. No country ever had a greater cause than that. And I wouldn't be an American worthy of the name if I didn't honor Senator Obama and his supporters for their achievement.”
The night ended like most other conventions, the families came out and the Maverick waved with his new running mate. But, like the night before, it was awkward. McCain and Palin waved to the crowd only for a brief moment before disappearing to work the rope line. Rope line??? The balloons hadn’t even fallen yet (there was a TON of balloons). This isn’t a night for a rope line meet and greet session. Those two should have been out there in the confetti, hamming it up, kicking balloons and marveling at the fireworks...projected on the jumbotron. Awkward.
As the delegates filed out, taking their state signs and handfuls of confetti with them as souvenirs, Team Getty packed up shop. For the better part of 2 hours, 8 photographers, 4 picture editors, 1 tech guy and 2 runners wrapped up cables, took down the 4 remote cameras and loaded our bags. After two weeks of crazy politicians, It's Miller Time.

The Lipstick Wearing Pit Bull - RNC Day 3

2008-09-05T17:36:00.000-07:00

It’s a big day today. Sarah Palin is scheduled to speak and her entire family, including the pregnant teen, will be there. We haven’t decided which will get more play, her speech or the pregnant teen. The first part of the day is like groundhog’s day. The delegates start filling the floor around 2 pm. Bored photographers hunt down another goofy hat or costume photo. Each day gets harder and harder to find something different.

Like previous days, the first 2-1/2 hours of the session is occupied with c-list speakers. I take my position on the perch. It’s packed tonight. They have 8 of us crammed into the top tier of the riser. Four people was pretty tight, eight is uncomfortable. With such little space, I am constantly getting bumped in the back of the head with lenses. It’s going to be a long night.

Three failed republican presidential hopefuls will be speaking tonight. Mitt Romney was the first to go. I really don’t have much to say about him, he’s just Mitt and he and Anne love all of you.

Mike “The Huckster” Huckabee went next. I loved covering Huckabee in Iowa and New Hampshire, he’s a very funny guy and always made for great pictures. Was good to wsee he’s out there. When he took the stage tonight, the giant screen behind him had a picture of a parking lot. Other people have had nice sunset vistas, a beautiful country road or a quaint American Main Street. Huck got a parking lot. Man, that’s rough. His speech was pretty bad. It was full of recycled stories from the Iowa days. He pulled out the old desk story. It totally bombed. Huck needs some new material.

Next up, Rudy G. Earlier in the day I had tried to get a betting pool going on how many times he would say 9/11 in his speech. I had no takers. Rudy was his normal arrogant self and started in on the Barack Bash almost immediately. He would belt out weird criticisms and then laugh at his own joke because nobody else was. It was bizarre. But, the most amazing thing was that he only mentioned 9/11 once or twice. I thought for sure it would be every other word. He did have to remind us a few times that he was the Mayor of New York City, just in case you had forgotten.

The catch phrase of the day was "we're winning, the surge has succeeded."

The pregnant teen and her gum chewing boyfriend were in the VIP box now. Every camera in the place was aimed towards them. He looked frightened. I would have been.
Sarah Palin hit the stage shortly after 9 pm. The crowd went nuts. She graciously waved to her fellow republicans and repeatedly said thank you. She seemed overwhelmed. I’m sure this wasn’t the size of crowd she had when she was mayor of the 9,000 person town. At one point during her speech the crowd went crazy and I saw her through my lens sort of gasp and mouth “oh wow.” She started out her speech really strong, this woman has spunk. It seemed like she knew what she was doing. Midway through the speech, Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin made an appearance so she could have her daily arrest. She needs to not be so predictable.
I think a lot of people were impressed. The crowd loved her hockey mom/pit bull line with the lipstick punchline. The bashing began soon after and continued for the rest of her speech in the same joking way as Rudy. She had lots of zeal, but no substance.
At the end of her speech, McCain came out to deafening cheers. It was a really awkward moment. They both seemed confused. McCain blurted out one line, stood next to her for a minute and waved and then seemed to shrug his shoulders and say now what as he stood with his back to the audience. He then went behind her family as if to hide. Great coordination. Bizarre.

Back at the Sculpture Garden - RNC Day 2

2008-09-03T11:47:00.000-07:00

The great thing about the RNC is that they start so late in the afternoon you get to have a few extra hours of sleep. Today’s show starts at 6:20 (odd time) and runs through 10 pm. We go to the event site in shifts, rotating the early morning shift every day. I’m with the 11:30 shift today. I also get a brief change of scenery. I am heading to the Minneapolis Convention Center to cover a press conference with the Robot (Cindy) and the Smoker (Laura). The two are going talk about their support of the ONE Campaign, a charitable organization that donates care packages for people doing humanitarian service in impoverished countries. They are going to pack a ceremonial box for the cameras. Laura raced through the assembly line process once and was done. Cindy went through twice, both times with a very determined look on her face.

Back at the Sculpture Garden, it was another day of stiff wax-like speakers. The only difference today is the addition of music. ACDC at the RNC? Yup. Contemporary country tunes also rocked the house. At least the crowd seemed to be having fun today. Yesterday was like a funeral.
The costume of the day is worn by the delegates from Alaska. Photographers go wild to get photos of them wearing orange construction vests and hard hats that have a message about drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. A photo on the back of their vest shows animals roaming in oil fields. Cute.
Today’s schedule is chock full of speakers whose names I don’t recognize. It isn’t until the last hour of the program that more familiar names appear. Joe Lieberman? What the hell is he doing here? George Bush Senior and Barbara are in the hall watching from the VIP box alongside Cindy and her adopted Bangladeshi kid. Laura Bush is back on the podium. What’s up with the recycling of speakers at this event? Not enough people to fill the slots I guess. The Smoker introduced her husband, the President. He couldn’t get himself to Minnesota so he phoned it in. Bush on the big screen. Yikes.
I do my best to not fall asleep as I sit atop my 12 foot tall riser as Fred Thompson told us tales about John McCain’s life. He made sure to use the convention’s slogan “country first” in just about every sentence. Lieberman was after him. He still calls himself a democrat. I thought he dumped that party. I need a drink.

Minnesota Nice at the Polka Bar - RNC Day 1

2008-09-03T09:15:00.001-07:00

Day one of the RNC was amazingly dull. The session was cut down to about 3 hours, a perfect length for an event like this. The highlight of the evening, if you can call it that, was when Cindy McCain (the robotic Stepford Wife) and Laura Bush (The chain smoking librarian) gave brief remarks on how to donate to the hurricane relief fund. Aside from the gangbang to shoot the Texas delegates and their cowboy hats, the day was not very photogenic inside the hall. It was kind of like shooting a sculpture garden.

Outside the hall, all hell broke loose. So-called “anarchists” took to the streets of St. Paul, breaking windows and trashing cop cars. Pepper spray was deployed into the faces of protestors and photographers. People got arrested. My buddy Evan Vucci from AP had his camera smashed and was detained briefly by police. He walked away with some great footage and made a very solid video. His colleague Matt Rourke (who made fantastic frames) spent most of the evening in jail. Outside was definitely the place to be for photos on day one. Protestors 1 - Republicans 0.
With the abbreviated schedule, we were done by 7 pm. A big group of photographers and editors were headed to Nye’s Polonaise, an old school polka bar in Minneapolis. My friend Sam Morris had told me about it a few weeks ago and it sounded like a place that you have to experience.
Nye’s is a restaurant that features live polka music as well as a sing-along piano bar. It is an awesome place. Glittery vinyl upholstered booths in red and gold dazzle the main room. A trio of senior citizens known as “The World’s Most Dangerous Polka Band” perform in the adjacent Polka Lounge where they eek out all kinds of tunes from polka to country. Founding member, Ruth Adams, plays a modified accordion that doesn’t require her to squeeze it like a traditional accordion. All three of the musicians barely move as they perform. The music is exactly what you would imagine from three frozen elderly folks. It’s brilliant.
The manager of Nye’s volunteered to take us on a tour of the establishment since it was our first visit. It was a very nice gesture and a fun tour. Minnesotans are so damn nice. The New York guys are freaked out by all the nice people here. They’re not really sure what to make of it.

Since it was Labor Day, Nye’s was scheduled to be closed but stayed open to accommodate convention goers. Sadly, the restaurant only had on food offering, polish sausage. It was good, but I want to experience a full meal at this cool place. Hopefully we can return before weeks end.

The Fried Food Experience

2008-09-01T08:39:00.000-07:00

I’ve been at the Excel Center since 9am. I’m trying to find features but am having little success. Photographers pounce when workers peel protective paper off of a mirrored riser. People are bored.

Word came midway through Sunday that the organizers of the RNC are thinking of making changes to the convention due to the imminent landing of Hurricane Gustav. They announced a press conference for 3 pm that would outline these changes. After running tests on our tether systems, I covered the press conference. The room was packed. There had to have been at least 40 stills or more. McCain would be speaking via satellite to announce the changes in the convention schedule.

When McCain came on the TV, the cameras went wild. Thousands of shutter clicks went off during his short appearance. Motor drives gone wild. I felt like I was under fire. Cease fire! Cease Fire!

McCain announced that the first day of the convention would be abbreviated and only tend to official convention business. All of the heavy hitting speakers scheduled for Monday had canceled. The list included George Bush, Dick Cheney and Ahhhnold Schwarzenegger. The six hour program had been cut down to 2 hours. Hurricane Gustav was killing the convention. Could it be karma for the current republican administrations lack of response to Katrina? Did the evangelicals who prayed for rain on Obama’s Invesco field speech get the date wrong? The RNC was getting washed out by a hurricane that was hundreds of miles south of Minnesota. McCain said during his satellite fed speech that “it is time to take our republican hats off and put on our American hats.” What exactly does that mean?

News crews began to trickle out of the convention. Some are heading to NOLA for the hurricane, some are just thinking that this story is dead and scale back their coverage.
With all of our work done for the day, a group of us head to the Minnesota State Fair. The 320-acre fair is a bad food mecca. The fair is known for its huge variety of deep fried food on a stick. You can get deep fried Twinkies, corn dogs, alligator, Oreos and pretty much any other bad food you can think of. There are carnival style food trailers everywhere. There is more food here than anything. You can also buy hot tubs, couches and grain silos. One of the grain silo sellers advertised the availability of “fall erections.” A group of kids took pictures and laughed at the sign. Yes, we did too.
Reuters photographer Brian Snyder had told me about chocolate covered bacon at the fair. I was intrigued. It was my mission to find this delicacy. We walked around for a few hours in search of the bacon. Along the way, a few of my co-workers “got their Twink on” and tried the deep fried Twinkie on a stick. Looked scary.
As the sun was going down we finally found Famous Dave’s, home of the chocolate covered bacon. For five dollars I got a cone shaped water cup filled with 5 pieces of “Sweet and Salty Pig Lickers.” Fairgoers looked on as a group of geeky photographers simultaneously photographed the cup of bacon. I took a deep breath and bit into the greasy confection. Hmmm, not bad. Seriously. Tasted a little like when you have bacon with pancakes and you dip it in the syrup. I wanted it to be more disgusting than it was.

Denver to Minneapolis

2008-09-01T07:48:00.001-07:00

The Mall of America is the first thing I see as my Frontier flight descends into the Minneapolis –St. Paul airport. After a long Thursday and little sleep, I arrive in St. Paul for the round two of the political conventions.

After a day of much needed rest, the crew headed to the Excel Energy Center in St. Paul to do a walk through of the new venue. Everything in the small arena is red. A giant monitor behind the small podium projects a waving flag. The stage is boring compared to the democrats’ game show-like set-up. For the most part, everything is in place. Unlike the DNC, people aren’t frantically running around trying to put final touches on the stage and arena.
We weren’t at the site very long. A few of us decided to check out the media party before our Getty team dinner. We programmed the GPS to take us to the Guthrie Theatre. We navigated around all the road closures in St. Paul and finally got onto the freeway. Twenty minutes later, we arrived at the theatre – or so we thought. There wasn’t much going on except some weird art miniature golf in a big field of grass. We walked around for a few minutes and finally asked someone where the Guthrie Theatre was. It turns out that the theatre used to be on the site of the mini golf but was torn down 2 years prior and relocated. We were about 5 miles from the new site. With only 30 minutes before our dinner, we blew off the party. Thanks Garmin.

Chip knew of a sculpture park across the street from the mini golf so we visited the famous spoonbridge and cherry sculpture. At least the light was nice.

The Historic Money Shot - DNC Finale

2008-08-29T15:06:00.000-07:00

It’s a little after midnight and we just got back to the Final Stay. It was nice and quiet in my room so I cranked up my TV to 4 and was watching CNN. At about 1:15 I heard my neighbor walk into his room with a giggling girl in tow. I can hear everything through the paper thin walls. The radio turned on. I know where this is going. All I can say is that guy had stamina. They must have been going at it for over an hour. “Ooooooh, oooooh, yes baby” The tacky gold framed water color painting above my bed was bouncing at one point. If only my TV volume could go past four. I eventually fell asleep and missed the magic moment, the so-called "money shot." This made my stay at the Final Stay complete.

Today is the big finale of the convention, the much anticipated Obama acceptance speech. The event is so big that we have moved out of the Pepsi Center to the neighboring Invesco Field. This move was a logistical nightmare for the Getty technical staff and field editors. At the conclusion of Biden’s speech on Wednesday, they had to completely tear down the network of computers and spoolers to move the operation over. Our chief photographer Win McNamee also had to move tons of lenses and camera equipment over as well to avoid having to have it all swept the next day. He hung remote cameras and took care of other things until the wee hours of the morning. The move to Invesco was not welcomed by many in the media, especially TV.

The day started out early for us and would go late. We got to Invesco at 10 a.m. for a speech that was scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. Despite the early start, the shuttle ride from the Pepsi Center and the extra security, this was going to an historic day. This is why I love my job. I get to experience some amazing things.
It’s warm out, but not too warm. The day would have been tough if it was as hot as it had been all week. People began to stream in at noon. By three o’clock the stadium was nearing capacity. Eight Getty photographers were in place around the stadium when the speakers began shortly after three. For the most part, they were pretty dull until the five o’clock hour when Will.i.am and John Legend performed. Shortly after Sheryl Crow did a quick three song set. Stevie Wonder came later. He wanted me to tell you that he loves you.
Al Gore brought the crowd of flag waving democrats to their feet as he took the stage. His speech had a few of those funny Al Gore one liners which the crowd loved. His best one was when he took a swipe at John McCain’s failed policies that mimic the Bush administration. Gore said “Hey, I believe in recycling, but that’s ridiculous.”
The big moment came a little bit after eight. Obama took the stage and 84,000 people came to their feet in a roar. Lights flashed, flags waved. Invesco was alive. Obama walked to the podium, waving to the crowd. He is not one to really ham it up to the crowd like some politicians do. I don’t think I have ever seen him do that pointing thing that Hillary does or the fist pump thumbs-up thing. I like that about him. At the podium, he repeatedly said thank you to the crowd. So far, the pictures weren’t that great. His speech was close to an hour long. From my side position, the photos were limited. The money shot was supposed to come at the end when fireworks, confetti and streamers were to be launched from the top of the stadium. Rumors were going around that the fireworks show would be very Beijing-like. When it all went down, it was pathetic. The families came out on the stage, did the wave thing, but the fireworks and confetti never came. When it did, after they had left the runway stage, the fireworks were wimpy, the confetti was intermittent and the streamers were launched into the wires of the Skycam. I hope they enhanced the fireworks for the TV viewers at home just as they did for the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Still, it was history and very cool.

Bring on the RNC and the Tiny Fey lookalike VP candidate. See you in Minnesota.

Billy Joe - DNC Day 3

2008-08-28T14:36:00.000-07:00

It is Arctic cold in the Pepsi Center this morning. They crank up the AC so when the crowd comes in the body temperature will balance out the cold and everyone will be comfortable. At 10 in the morning when nobody is in the hall, it is not comfortable. I’m filling in for my co-worker Mark Wilson on the main riser, better known as the “Cadillac” riser. I sat there for close to 3 hours waiting for an unexpected guest to do their walk through and sound check. Melissa Etheridge came out to rehearse her one song performance. She’s doing a medley of Americana songs, like Born in the U.S.A. and God Bless America. Very Patriotic.

Many things are happening today. The first big event was the convention roll call. The delegates officially cast their votes for who will be the party’s presidential nominee. It’s a long drawn out process, kind of boring actually. Both Obama and Hillary are in the running. There was plenty of excitement surrounding the New York delegation. Hillary was slated to announce New York’s votes and the scrum of all scrums surrounded the microphone in the delegation’s area. It was packed tight. I am so glad I wasn’t in the middle of that.

When New York was called to vote, Hillary walked out from the bowels of the Pepsi Center with New York Governor David Paterson and U.S. Senator Chuck Shumer. Hillary asked the convention chairman to cease the voting process and name Barack the nominee. No shenanigans from ol’ Hill as some thought there might be. How is that for unity? The crowd went nuts, people were breaking down and crying. It was quite the scene.

The day dragged on until Bill Clinton took the stage. The convention floor erupted at first site of Bubba. Democrats LOVE Bill Clinton. It was by far the loudest that hall had been since the convention started. The most surprising thing was that he was actually on time. Bill is NEVER on time. The standing ovation lasted so long that Bill actually said that people should sit down, he wanted to keep things moving. The crowd pretty much ignored him and kept cheering. He responded by saying “I really like this.” A typically stellar Bill Clinton speech followed. This is turning into the Clinton Show. People are now jammed in every open area of the convention floor waiting for the Buh-Buh-Biden to deliver is acceptance speech. The fire marshal isn’t happy. Red signs with “Biden” on them are distributed amongst the crowd. Biden’s son Beau announced his father who came out to thunderous cheers (not as loud as Bill’s though) and hugged his son which appeared to bring tears to the senator’s eyes as he slyly pulled a tissue from his pocket to wipe his eye. The speech itself wasn’t bad. He didn’t stutter, although I wish he would have, just to hear what that sounds like.

The speech ended in normal political speech fashion. His wife came out, they waved. It was cute. But that wasn’t it. Just like Steve Jobs always says at MacWorld. There was one more thing. I got the email from the campaign before the start of Biden’s speech that Obama would be joining his new running mate on stage. I think this was the only thing that could trump Bill Clinton’s adoration from the crowd. It was insane. Arm in arm, they waved to the crowd. Kind of weird move to have them both together a day before Obama makes his acceptance speech. Sort of like the groom seeing the bride on wedding day. After the long day with little food, we were going to try and find somewhere to eat. It was pretty late, around 10:30 so our options were limited. We ended up giving our freelancer Max Whittaker a ride to his hotel about 20 minutes south of downtown. He said he knew of a good Mexican place near where he was staying which piqued the interest of Spencer and Sandy. When we got there, it was closed. Max asked a worker if he knew of any thing that was open nearby and he responded immediately with “there is an Old Chicago about two blocks away.” Determined to not eat at another Old Chicago, we settled for a Perkins.

Hillary and My Favorite Martian - DNC Day 2

2008-08-28T00:03:00.000-07:00

Soapy water from my previous days shower remained in the tub as I prepared to take my morning shower. Thankfully, I was able to figure out that the stopper had accidentally sealed the drain. I didn’t have to play Roto-Rooter man like my co-worker Cliff Hawkins did in his room. My room at Final Stay has a kitchenette fully equipped with a microwave, stove, toaster, fridge and an assortment of dishes. It has been nice to make toast in the morning and watch the muted television before heading out to work. This was good until today. Today, the toaster blew up. Put the English muffin in, pressed down the lever and with a dazzling display of light, half the heating elements were gone.

The security sweeps to enter the Pepsi Center have become more efficient compared to the first day when it took us 45 minutes to get through. Originally, the E.O.D. guys were hand searching every piece of equipment, which was a total drag. Now, we just push everything through an x-ray machine, even leaving laptops in their cases. Hey T.S.A., you hear that? And we get to leave our shoes on too!

Today’s line-up looked to be a real snoozer with dozens of boring speakers leading into the big Hillary speech. I laughed when I saw that Dennis Kucinich (my favorite martian) was scheduled to speak at around 5:00 pm. But, when Dennis hit the stage, he put on the performance of his life. Kucinich, who is known for his defiant opposition to the war in Iraq, belted out a spirited speech outlining the Bush administrations neglect to the citizens of America. Referring to high gas prices, home foreclosures, outsourcing business to other countries and even Hurricane Katrina, Dennis flailed his arms about, shouting “wake up America!” He was so into it that he would occasionally seem to be lifting off the ground as he pumped his fists. His wife must be proud.

Fellow photographer Matt Cavanaugh (EPA) and I share a small portion of the “pod” (riser) on the right side of the stage. It isn’t the best spot at the venue, but it’s what we were assigned to cover. We’ve been passing the time during the long 6 hour session by providing commentary during the speeches. We have come to the conclusion that the phrase for this convention is “failed policy.” Every single person that speaks, whether it’s the local dog catcher or Dennis Kucinich, they all say it. Sometimes they say it more than once. If its not in your speech, you’re not with the program.
After 6 pm, the bigger names come out to speak. With each speaker, a sign with a slogan relevant to that person is passed out. For instance, when Michelle Obama spoke the previous night, tall paddle-like signs with “Michelle” written on them were passed out to everyone in the crowd. Kennedy had a more traditional campaign sign that simply read “Kennedy.” Today I saw one that said “One Nation.” I turned to Matt and said that the Obama campaign should avoid the slogan “Obama Nation” – people might get the wrong idea.
Hillary was the big headliner this evening. She hit the stage in her mustard yellow pant suit after a short video of her life and an introduction by her daughter Chelsea. The crowd went wild. They waved signs that read “unity” “Hillary” and “Obama” We had earlier witnessed someone handing Bill Clinton a “unity” sign which he wanted nothing to do with. He wouldn’t even touch it. Looks like the feud between him and Obama continues.
Hillary’s speech was great, she even topped my favorite martian's speech. Like the night before, it brought tears to many eyes in the Pepsi Center. In typical Clinton fashion, she stole the show. She exited gracefully and the night was over.

It was beer time. A few nights earlier we had gone to a chain restaurant across the street from the Final Stay called “Old Chicago” which has some 110 beers on its menu. It’s kind of a gross place, typical chain restaurant type of fare. So, tonight, we thought we would go out somewhere in downtown Denver. Somewhere fun that was cool and local. We walked out of heavily guarded Fort Pepsi walked across the bridge and right into an Old Chicago restaurant. How pathetic are we?

Michelle and Teddy - Day One of the DNC

2008-08-26T08:39:00.000-07:00

I think Barack made a mistake by picking Joe Buh-Buh-Biden as his VP. He should have picked his wife, Michelle. Her speech that topped the first night of the DNC was impressive. She was an amazing blend of real person and seasoned politician. The woman can speak. Men and women in the packed Pepsi Center were brought to tears as she spoke of family, dreams and her love of country. Michelle also appears to have had some serious stage training. Most political wives often seem uncomfortable and shut down (Teresa Heinz Kerry comes to mind) but Michelle comes off as intelligent and confident. She knows how to play up the crowd, comes out waving and makes sure she acknowledges the entire audience. From a photographer’s perspective this is great since most come out and barely lift their arms as they look at their feet.

Day two of the convention started early for me. I was on the early shift with my co-workers Mark Wilson and Cliff Hawkins. We cover the hall until noon when the rest of the crew arrives. The big event for the morning is Michelle Obama doing a sound and light check. When we first arrived, it was just me and AP photographer Charlie Dharapak on the floor. Within an hour, there were dozens of photographers jammed up against the stage. We stood like this for a couple of hours. Boredom sets in fast when you’re just standing there like cattle. We amused ourselves by taking tons of pictures of the guy vacuuming the carpet on stage. The only thing that diverted attention away from the vacuum man was the overly made up and super cheesy E Insider reporter who was doing stand up with her shirt half open. It was funny in a not so pretty way. She even asked me if I could take her picture and put it up on the wire. You can’t make this stuff up.

The day was long. By 2 pm we had to be in our positions where we would be for the next 7 hours. Howard Dean dropped the gavel at 3 pm, officially starting the convention. Delegates wearing goofy hats and costumes started to stream in. The variety show style band was playing bad cover songs to lead into and out of the different speakers. The Florida delegation appears to be the most outrageous with dozens of them wearing pink glasses and pink flamingo feathers as they danced and played volleyball with beach balls. The photographers on the floor swarm.

There are dozens of people speaking, from the City Clerk of Chicago to Ted Kennedy. So much of the day is spent listening to the same speech over and over again about how Barack Obama is so great and how “we can’t have four more years of the same failed policy.” It is numbing after a while. The worst speaker of the day was liberal republican Jim Leach. The man needs a personality. He didn’t move a muscle in his body during his speech. I’m not even sure his mouth moved. If the arena lights had been dimmed, the entire place would have fallen asleep.

I botched up the Jimmy Carter appearance. From what I understood, he would only be appearing via a taped message. I took this as an opportunity to take a bathroom break. Of course, moments after I dropped down from my position and am nowhere near my camera, he walks out. Thanks buddy.

I was kind of shocked that Teddy Kennedy spoke. I was thinking that he might come out and wave after Caroline gave her tribute to him. But, in typical Teddy fashion, he came out waving to the energized crowd. They had set a stool next to the podium for him to rest on as he spoke and he just pushed it out of the way and stood for his entire speech. I am glad he didn’t collapse on stage or something. That would have been ugly. This could very well be the last time that we see this man. What a way to go if that is the case.

After a late dinner, the crew headed back to the Final Stay America. New information came to light today about some recent activity at the Final Stay. My editor Sandy told me that according to a waitress at the Denny’s across the street, there was a big prostitution ring that was busted at the hotel a few weeks back. She also told her a story about how a man came into the Denny’s recently and became obsessed with trying to win a prize in that machine where you put a quarter in and try to navigate a little crane hook to lift a prize out of a pile of stuffed toys. I guess he spent all of his money unsuccessfully trying to get a stuffed toy. He became frustrated, went to his car, got a shotgun and blew a hole in the glass. He reached in, grabbed a toy and left. This is a very colorful neighborhood.

The DNC

2008-08-24T21:53:00.000-07:00

I’m trying to watch the news on my TV at the Extended Stay America hotel but I can’t hear what is being said. The volume on my TV only goes up to 4. Not 11 like Nigel’s amp in Spinal Tap. Our hotel, which we affectionately call the “Final Stay in America” is surprisingly better than expected. I had found a few reviews online that were overwhelmingly negative and many had described the hotel as “disgusting” and “the worst place I have ever stayed at in my life.” I have to say, I have stayed at much worse. It’s basically a Motel 6, not the run down crack house that I expected.

Today was our big test day at the Pepsi Center. After spending nearly a half an hour going through security into the heavily guarded fortress that surrounds the Pepsi Center, we began our set up. We had to put our system through the motions to see how it is going to respond under the pressure of several tethered cameras. We have multiple positions throughout the venue that are hardwired into a server that instantly sends the photos to an editor as we shoot. At the same time, we all fire our cameras, taking pictures of workers and the big game show-like stage. People are setting up signs in the areas that delegates will sit. Secret Service is strategically postitioned around the stage. After several rounds of testing, our system appears ready for action.

After a few hours, we all milled around the center shooting features. Today is the final set up day for the stage techs and members of the media to sort out technical bugs and make final preparations for the start of the convention tomorrow. The networks have several positions throughout the hall, Katie Couric is doing her evening news program live from the convention floor. Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper are also in the house. Walking through the bowels of Pepsiland, I get stuck behind a group of young women who are working for CNN and are wearing t-shirts that have “RUNNER” on the back. They are walking – slowly.

The food situation is sketchy. Until the vendors open for business in the hall, the only option within the secure zone is a carnival style grease wagon that sells hot dogs and typical county fair items or a Circle K gas station food mart. I went for the 2 for $2.29 hot dogs at the Circle K and gave one to my boss. Slim pickens.

The day was long, just as tomorrow will be. Was good to see so many of my friends and hope to see more in the coming days. The big show starts in the morning, bright and early. We will leave the Final Stay at 7 a.m. to get through security and be ready to go as Michelle Obama makes an early morning appearance at the hall for her sound check.

A Whole Different Animal

2008-08-23T15:15:00.000-07:00

My cab driver, Ken, who resembles a younger and bigger Danny Glover, leans back in his seat as we pull away from my house. Ken’s seat is so far back we are almost sitting next to each other. His Bluetooth headset illuminates his diamond earring as it blinks blue. “Where you headed today?” I tell him that I am heading to Denver. “Ahh, the convention. Barack screwed up. It’s over, man. McCain won.” His reference to Obama’s choice of Joe Buh-buh-binden for VP continued with “he’s just another white guy, shoulda picked Hillary.” I have a feeling there will be many folks sharing Ken’s sentiments. I wonder if Ken got the text, I forgot to ask.

I’m flying Frontier Airlines, the wildlife themed airline that features pictures of bunnies and other fluffy creatures on its planes. Their slogan is “A Whole Different Animal” – Mrrrrow! Since their online check-in wasn’t working I have to stand in line to check-in for the flight. Seems like every time I have to stand in line to check-in, I stuck behind a family with 6 kids and 20 pieces of luggage which are all over the per-bag weight limit. Today, I am behind 2 families like this. Kids are running all around, bags are everywhere. Thankfully, they didn’t start to unpack and rearrange like most do.

The plane has TVs that you can watch satellite programming for $5.99. They allow you to watch for free during takeoff. Obama’s first rally with Joe Biden is on CNN. Obama has been speaking for about 5 minutes and is just about ready to bring Biden on stage when the TV shuts off. The free trial is over. I try to swipe my card to continue, it won’t work. I was so close. With the TV now off, all I can hear is the whimpering puppy behind me and the screeching kid across the aisle. Something smells. I think one of the aforementioned has gone to the bathroom.

They just announced that margaritas are available for six dollars. Also listed on the in-flight snack menu is Hector’s “Nacho Ordinary” Chips. It goes on to say “Hector (apparently a Mexican grizzly bear) himself chose this salty favorite: crisp, crunchy chips dusted with nacho cheesy goodness. Gracias, Hector” Margaritas and a bear named Hector? I’m not getting the Mexican/wildlife connection. “A whole different nationality of animal.”

Our landing was perfect, I think that is a first for any flight I have had into Denver. I now wait for my co-worker Spencer Platt to arrive and then we will take our soccer mom van to the hotel. Welcome to Denver.

Text? What Text?

2008-08-23T10:57:00.000-07:00

For the better part of Friday night, my eyeballs were glued to that green flashing light on my Blackberry waiting for it to turn red. I had to shoot a picture of the text message from the Obama campaign that would reveal his choice for VP. The green turned to red throughout the evening. All sorts of messages were coming in. I got Obama’s traveling press schedule, the daily barrage of Gov. Schwarzenegger emails, a reminder from my boss, etc… When was this Vice President announcement going to come through? What if I don’t get it?

At 10:00 pm, I looked at MSNBC and that red “breaking news” banner emblazoned the top of the page “AP confirms that Obama has picked Biden.” I picked up my Blackberry – still flashing green. Interesting.

I awoke at 6:30am and once again checked the Blackberry. Still flashing green. No text. Not even an email. I’m not loved.

In the end, the text never came and I had to have it forwarded to me to take a picture of it. I bet McCain got the text. Wait, does he know how to use a phone?

Sorry Bill, Not This Time

2008-08-19T15:50:00.000-07:00

I wonder if Bill Richardson thought he was going to be named as Obama’s VP. He was on hand at the Rio Grande High School gym rally and gave a very spirited pep talk before introducing the senator to a packed house. He sat intently looking on from the front row, nodding when Obama made points that he agreed with. He clapped at all the right moments. But, the second that Obama finished his speech, Richardson was gone. If you blinked, you missed it. He didn’t even wait for Obama to come by on the rope line for one more handshake. It was like the Roadrunner, just a cloud of dust. Meep meep.

Time to eat.

One of the best things about traveling with a candidate is the food. The only problem is how much food there is. Just about every event has food as does every flight and bus ride. If you aren’t careful you can end up looking like the Michelin Man in no time. It is hard to resist though when the advance staff sets up spreads of local fare. Today we were treated Mexican. I love the food in New Mexico. Every campaign visit I have ever made to New Mexico has been a good culinary experience. Today was no exception. Tacos, enchiladas, chips homemade Mexican cookies – good stuff.

My quick trip inside the bubble ended after the high school event. When the motorcade arrived at Cutter Aviation I hopped off, grabbed my bag and headed to the main terminal for my flight home. This was a very short trip, but there is plenty more in the coming months. Onward to the conventions.

McLovin Obama and Pelosi

2008-08-18T21:21:00.001-07:00

A crazy thought was on my mind when I woke up this morning. McLovin (from the movie Superbad) could be Michael Phelps’ twin. Think about it.

Our day started out relatively early with a 7:15 am bag call. We did three decent events in Reno before heading to San Francisco. The take-off from Reno was really bumpy, the landing in SF was terrible. O-Force One slammed down on the tarmac at SFO as if we had just hooked the third wire on the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan. The impact was punctuated by gasps and the sound of metal trays and who knows what else crashing in the galley.

Our stay in SF was brief, about 5 hours. Obama was in town for night of fundraising. Since photos aren’t allowed during fundraisers, the traveling pool ended up with three hours of downtime while the senator raked in $7.8 million dollars as he bounced from one event to another at the Fairmont Hotel. I wish I could make that kind of dough for 3 hours of my time.

A group of us had dinner in Chinatown. A few of the ladies came back to the press hold after shopping at Victoria’s Secret. We all got a good laugh when our press agent had to search their little pink bags during the sweep.

The best part of the night came when we were waiting to move in the motorcade to that airport. We had been holding outside in the pool van for almost 2 hours when the loaded us for our imminent departure. Our van was behind a Highway Patrol car and a staff van. A police car pulled out of the garage followed by two SUV’s and we quickly folded into the movement. Two blocks into it we stop. The officer in the lead car got out and started flailing his arms about. We had stupidly hopped into Nancy Pelosi’s motorcade. We were now out of the bubble – dirty.

We sat in the middle of Powell Street as Dean, our press agent, tried to maneuver us back into the correct motorcade. Alas, it was too late, it had already left. Now, on our own, we zig-zagged through SF trying to get to the airport as soon as possible. The conversation between our Chinese driver James and Dean with his Southern drawl was hilarious as they went back and forth about how to get to the airport. Dean told James to disregard traffic laws and “drive it like you stole it.” James was all over it. We even experienced a burst of flashes as he blew through a red light at a photo enforced intersection. I’m sure the judge will buy his story. “No, really, I was told by a Secret Service agent to run red lights.”

We made it back to the plane and eventually to Albuquerque.

The Obama McCain Meeting

2008-08-18T21:09:00.000-07:00

The AC cord from the laptop dangled alongside the shoeless man as he sprinted down the corridor at the Oakland International Airport. His flip flops are nearly falling out of his shoulder bag. Ten minutes earlier an announcement went over the public address calling for this man to come to gate 20 for immediate boarding for the 10:15 flight to Seattle. It was no 10:25. The plane was gone. Might be time to invest in a watch.

I was early for my 11:45 to Orange County. I am headed to Pastor Rick Warren’s mega church in Lake Forest, Ca. for the town hall style meeting with McCain and Obama.

Saddleback Church campus is gigantic. Dozens of buildings, tents and a few restaurants are scattered all over the 120 acre complex where an estimated 20,000 people come to worship. The place has a very weird feeling. The people are overly friendly. I’m not going to drink any kool-aid if it’s offered.

The two presumptive presidential candidates will be questioned by Pastor Warren in a massive 2,000 or so seat auditorium with fake trees in the mezzanine and oversized video monitors above the stage. The giant press riser is so big that it actually looks empty. Maybe it was. I am double-teaming the event with my Los Angeles counterpart David McNew. The plan is to have me join the traveling press and shoot from the buffer and McNew will shoot from the rear.

Church security staff is very weird about our movements in the church and was limiting our photo opportunities from the buffer. We would get three chances, once when Obama and Warren met, another during a commercial break and finally the shot of McCain and Obama meeting at the show’s halfway mark.

The first shot we’re given lasted roughly 45 seconds. The mob of about 15 stills and TV cameras was escorted down a long walkway into the buffer. Some are doing the accelerated walk. The elbows are starting to come out. The light is challenging. A wave to the crowd and we are ushered back to our holding area. Shot two was for the most part in the dark as they turned the stage lights off during the commercial break. As if it wasn’t dark enough already.

Anxious photographers jockeyed for position in the hold as the money shot drew near. As we were escorted down the path to the stage people actually started running. Once at the stage, the pushing began as people tried to jam themselves as close to the stage as possible. I stood behind the pack so I wouldn’t be shooting up their nose. In the blink of an eye we were out.

Traveling press broke away and we moved to the motorcade and were enroute to the airport in Long Beach within a few minutes.

An hour-long flight on O-Force One and we were in Reno. We were staying at the Grand Sierra Resort. After dropping bags in my pimpin’ mirror clad and dimly lit suite, I went people watching in the bar with AP photographer Alex Brandon and Athena Jones of NBC. The people were completely entertaining. From chubby women wearing painted on clothes and a Vanilla Ice look-a-like to Midwest convention goers and a Patrick Swayze wannabe with a bowl cut. The Sways-He impersonator tore up the dance floor with a combination of moves from Dirty Dancing to Sweatin' To The Oldies. Fascinating. Aside from drinking too much, I also lost $40 on the roulette table.

Dell's Latitude

2008-08-12T19:10:00.000-07:00

When I got hired at my current job, I had to switch from my Mac laptop to a company issued PC. It was a semi-difficult transition not because I had never used a Windows based machine, I just liked my Mac. Over time, I grew fond of my Dell. Since starting the job in 2003, I have had 3 or 4 different models. The current one, the Latitude D420, is nice. It's light and small, perfect for a photographer on the go. Not as hip as a Mac, but just right for the day to day.

Today, I shot a Dell event where the company announced a new line of their popular Latitude laptops. One of the laptops in the line-up caught my eye. The successor to the D420 called the Latitude E4200. This looks like a great little laptop. The compact 12.1 inch laptop, which is due out in a few weeks, will come in an array of colors and weighs in at a pleasantly light 2.2 pounds. My back liked the sound of that. Other cool features are a 16 hour battery and enhanced security options including a fingerprint scanner and remote data delete in the event that your laptop is stolen or lost.

I wish that I had played with it more, but from what I saw of it I liked it. Looks like a good option for someone like me or anyone that travels a lot. For more about the E4200 and the new line of Dell laptops click here.

Bay Area Newspapers Hit Hard...again

2008-08-11T17:47:00.000-07:00

News came over a week ago that the San Francisco Chronicle is preparing to cut nearly 125 jobs across the board. The cuts come just over a year after the last round of cuts in May of 2007 where 25% of the newsroom staff was let go.

If that wasn't enough, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to increase their annual newspaper rack fees from $30 per rack to $60. Just another financial blow to the already struggling Chronicle as well as other newspapers that use the racks. The new fee will go into effect August 30. You can read more about this story here.

Photo Manipulation of a Different Kind

2008-08-08T17:20:00.000-07:00

It seems like every week we are hearing about a photographer getting busted for manipulating a photo. An added ball, a few more flares or an extra column of smoke to make that already acceptable photo a little bit better - or not. It’s a huge problem that has discredited journalism and tarnished the trust between the public and journalists. There appears to be no end in sight.

What about other forms of deception?

I look at a lot of photographer’s websites and have started to take notice of a different kind of manipulation, the enhancement of resumes and biographies. Just like the incident where a Southern California based sports photographer used marketing and advertising as an excuse to move a baseball in a photograph, many are doing the same to market themselves in words. Obviously, it is impossible to know who every photographer has worked for or how long they have been shooting, especially if you don’t know them personally. But some make it easy since their story constantly changes on websites and message boards.

A good example comes from the website of a San Francisco Bay Area photographer who claims to have 20 years experience. Normally, I wouldn’t even notice such a claim if the work reflected that kind of experience. In this case it didn’t. So, I poked around the web for a bit and found that he has several websites and blogs that offered advice, tales of exotic assignments and a lot of conflicting information. One thing that stuck out was an older website that claimed he had 30 years experience, another said 15. Now, I’m no math genius, but those numbers don’t add up. The same photographer also claims to have worked for Getty Images, my employer. I can’t find anyone in the company who has ever heard of him nor do any of his pictures appear on our wire. It just makes me wonder what is true.

Client lists can often be deceptive. One shooter has Sports Illustrated and ESPN the Magazine on his list of “clients” but has only appeared in these magazines by way of the pictures he shot on spec for a sports photo agency, not an assignment. By saying that Sports Illustrated is a client suggests you have an established relationship with the magazine which yields paid assignments. In this instance, that isn’t the case. Having said that “my photos have appeared in…” would have been more truthful.

I know, sounds a little nit-picky and its no secret that it happens in every industry. But really, how much different is that than adding or taking away an element from a photo. It’s lying. People get fired from jobs for lying on resumes.

Having been a freelancer, I know that marketing is a huge part of how freelancers generate their business. It is priority number one to impress potential clients. The question is, why risk your credibility by bending the truth to make yourself sound better than you are? There is more to lose than there is gained from this. As a journalist, I believe that it is your obligation to market your services and experiences honestly and accurately.

A photographer’s portfolio should be strong enough to stand on its own and not rely on exaggerated biographies and work history. I certainly think marketing journalism in an untuthful way is an unethical practice that should be questioned more often.

Running on Fumes

2008-08-06T11:22:00.001-07:00

Mexico City was a complete blur. After checking in and then out of the Hotel Camino Real Aeropuerto Mexico in less than an hour we headed off to a press/delegation luncheon at the Four Seasons. I was hoping that since we were in Mexico that the lunch would be an assortment of local food since I love Mexican food. I was disappointed when service staff in neatly starched outfits brought out trays of chicken caeser wraps (which they tried to make sound Mexican by calling it a burrito), French fries and turkey sandwiches. The only thing that was remotely close to Mexican fare was guacamole and homemade chips, which was fantastic.

A few new faces popped up in the delegation crowd, most notably Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. I guess he must have felt bad about the Google plane dying in Ethiopia.

The lunch was quick but felt good to sit outside on the patio. We were soon gathered up and moved to the motorcade. We were headed to my last stop of the trip, the World AIDS conference. Bill would be giving the keynote address.

The convention hall was enormous, so big that it looked empty. The media mob was insane. There had to have been at least 30 photographers jammed up against the stage in front of the podium. Before Bill came out, the security people made all the photographers move from that spot into the aisles. This was great, because I have no idea how anyone was going to get a picture that way. It also opened things up a little bit for Barb and I to move around.

Midway through the speech I moved up to the stage. A security guard came up to me and said that I had to move back to the riser. I showed him my Clinton staff credential and he quickly and politely smiled, said thank you and walked away. No less than 4 minutes later he returned. It was a repeat performance of our last encounter. This happened two more times.

Filing was easy for once. I could actually use the Sprint card instead of the BGAN or painfully slow and erratic hotel wi-fi. My pictures were filed and I was done.

The airport was a breeze to get through. The departures board showed that my Mexicana flight to San Francisco was on time. Thank god. The first on time flight in a week. I had plenty of time to visit the duty free and stock up on my beloved tequila. I was dead tired, but happy to be going home.

But of course, what would this trip be without one more jab. The on time status of Mexicana 972 had now changed to delayed. Albeit a short 45 minute delay, it was still a delay. All I wanted to do was get on that plane and rest my head against the wall and go asleep. It was looking good as I approached aisle 19, one guy on the aisle and the middle seat open. It wasn’t until I reached my row that the middle seat was in fact not open, but occupied by a toddler. Someone kill me now. For the duration of the flight the kid alternated between crying, bouncing, kicking the seats all around or being punished by her short tempered father. Needless to say, I am looking forward to my bed and a few days off.

One more thing. For a brilliant account of the trials and tribulations of the Clinton Africa trip, please check out Anne Kornblut's article in today's Washington Post. You can access the article here.

4 events, 4 countries, 2 continents, 2 planes, 24 hours

2008-08-05T11:04:00.000-07:00

It was still dark when we rolled out of the parking lot at Hotel Rwanda. Once again, the night didn’t yield enough sleep. I think it was the best night of the trip for me, a solid 5 hours on the stiff little twin bed.

When we arrived at the airport, the Ethiopian 767 that was sitting on the tarmac a day earlier had shrunk. Overnight, the plane was switched out with a 737. Despite leaving the hotel at around 4:30 in the morning, I think we went wheels up at around 7:00ish. We took on much of Bill’s secret service detail as well as a few others since Air Bon Jovi will only seat 28.

The leg to Monrovia, Liberia was nice and smooth. It’s always a little difficult to transfer over to a chartered commercial airline. The flight attendants are pretty strict about things like seat belts, electronics being on during takeoff and landing and gear being stowed. They’re pretty much by the book. When on a private charter, it’s a whole different ball game. For the most part, you can get away with anything. I’ve been transmitting pictures while drinking a beer as the plane lifts off praying that the image will drop into the ftp before we get out of range. Orange bowling is always popular, although I didn’t see any of that this trip. There was some aisle surfing though. The flight attendant on A.B.J. even asked if we wanted to smoke on the flight when we left from New York. Thankfully, nobody took her up on it.

Monrovia was gray and rainy when we arrived. The airport was overrun with all types of U.N. equipment. Helicopters, planes, personnel carriers, you name it. After years of conflict, the country was pulling itself back together, one small piece at a time. Bill would be touring examples of progress in the country, a hotel under construction and a women’s outdoor market. He would also be meeting with the president to announce a new program to offer cheap malaria drugs. As our U.N. led motorcade made its way towards Monrovia, we passed U.N. peacekeepers along the road with their bright blue helmets and various patterns of camouflage. There was also dozens of deteriorating billboards with public service messages about AIDS, malaria and rape. All with bizarre cartoon drawings of people having sex, families sleeping under mosquito netting alongside anti-rape no means no situations. There was also an abundance of gas stations. I wanted to stop the motorcade and indulge in some gas price features.

After touring the hotel and market, we went to an embassy for the meeting with Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf . The delegation and the press were treated to bag lunches with several choices of meat, including crab. I don’t think anyone wanted to risk that one. I had the cheese with a bag of Doritos poppy seed, grilled tomato and chili chips. I’m surprised there wasn’t any Pringles, the leading third world chip. There were several cans of Fanta Orange, the official third world soda.

Our time on the ground was short, a mere 6 hours before heading off to Dakar, Senegal. In route to Senegal, I sat next to James, a flight attendant from A.B.J.
I was asking him about some of the trips he had been on. He and the crew have been to virtually every country and have catered to some of the most esteemed people in the world. He told me a story about a princess from a mid-east country that was on her way to school in the States. Apparently, she really liked McDonald’s. Her handlers asked her what she wanted to eat on the plane and she told them that she wanted McDonald’s. The handlers took this request to the next level and purchased 10 of each item on the menu for her flight to the U.S. I guess she hasn’t seen Supersize Me. Along with the heavy load of fast food, she was also carrying nearly one million bucks in cash. She asked if she would have to declare it. Wonder how that worked out for her.

Dakar was one of the places where we would spend a couple of days and have several hours of downtime. That was until we got trapped in Newark, killing most of the cool stuff on our original itinerary. Like Liberia, our time was short, about 5 hours. It was much warmer here than the places we had been. Felt like Miami. Our one event was pretty dull. A press conference about AIDS medication offered at a reduced cost. An important issue, but incredibly boring. I was nodding off while standing.

We were scheduled to depart at around 10:00 pm. At 8:00 pm, a staffer said that we needed to rush back to the plane and depart immediately since the crew had started into their workday 2 hours prior and if we waited longer the would have to take downtime halfway which would make us late to Mexico. Advance staff rounded us up and got us loaded. We had a good 35 minutes to the airport and traffic was at a standstill. The driver of the mini-bus was slipped 50 bucks (three times the average monthly salary) and in Steve McQueen Bullit style, we cut through traffic. It was intense, but very exciting. There were several close calls, lots of honking and many shouts from the peanut gallery. I think there had to have been dozens of near misses as we lane split between the two ways of traffic, right down the middle of the street. Jay Carson remarked that the driver must have thought he was riding a motorcycle. Police could only watch as we blazed between cars. We made it to the plane in record time. Then we sat for close to an hour and a half. Glad we risked our lives.

The overnight flight to Mexico City was long. We now had a new plane, another plane previously used by Hillary during her campaign. It was a 757, a big plane. We had 26 people on board. Everyone had at least three or four rows to themselves. I had my first class seat, another first class seat to watch movies and row of three seats in the back to sleep. Was able to get about 5 hours of sleep and enjoyed several cocktails with Matt McKenna and Jon Davidson. It was a fun time.

Mexico City turned into yet another comedy of errors. We rerouted to another airport about an hour or so from M.C. to avoid the long delays with customs at the Mexico City airport. The Clinton staff had already obtained visas for us and several travelers had to go into the Mexican embassy in N.Y. prior to the trip to be photographed and fingerprinted. You would think that with all of this stuff done beforehand, we would have breezed through customs like we did in every other country. It took over two hours. It was now 8:00am. We had a 10:15am bag drop at the hotel where we would be “staying.” Our hotel was near the airport, just not near the airport we arrived. It was at the Mexico City airport. By time we got there, we had 40 minutes in our rooms.

Fatigue

2008-08-02T17:40:00.000-07:00

Rwanda is an amazingly beautiful country. It is by far the cleanest developing country that I have ever been to. The streets in Kigali are spotless. You have to look really hard to see any signs of litter. The same goes for the rural areas. Someone said that a government imposed ban on plastic bags is a main factor for the cleanliness. There has to be more to it.

The day began early today. Another 3 hours of rest for me. We were loaded in the buses and headed to the airport to get on helicopters that would fly us out to a village where they grow cassava. The Rwandan Air Force transport helicopters fit in with all of our other aircraft on this trip, antiquated. Thankfully, the three Mi-8 Hip Helicopters made it through the day without malfunctions.

After flying over rolling hills dotted with small huts and farms that looked a patchwork quilt, we landed on a dirt soccer field in Rwinkwavu. At the edge of the field you could see people perectly lined up, fixated with the helicopters. There must have been 100 people just standing there and more were running down the dirt road. We drove in a van to the first event down a smooth brick red dirt road. As we drove along the road kicking up chalky red dust that clung to the roadside vegetation, kids ran from their homes to see a vanload of white people. Since we were ahead of the president, we had a chance to walk through one of the villages and talk to some of the villagers. It seemed like every resident was standing in front of their mud houses.

After Bill looked at a cassava field with a couple of farmers, we visited a rural healthcare clinic and then we flew over to another village while he dined with the president of Rwanda. We had box lunches.

When our helicopters took off, the same 100 people looked on. A group of about 15 kids had made their way to a closer vantage point, about 10 yards away. They ignored orders from a police officer to move back. When we lifted off, the rotor wash sandblasted the kids with red dusty dirt. They actually seemed to like it as they were blown around, some falling over, but still jumping up and down with excitement. A similar scene happened later in the day, but this time it was a group of singers. They didn’t seem as happy about it.

While Bill chowed down with the president, we sat in the bus for hours near the soccer field heliport. It was here that my fatigue started to show. I was attempting to get some work done and inadvertently erased one of my flash cards, one that had several images that I really liked. The photos of Chelsea getting her nose pinched by a little girl…gone. The kids getting sandblasted was also one for the memory. It was a nightmare. And once again, the day was turning south.

The bad news kept rolling in. Upon return to Kigali, we learned that our beloved Air Bon Jovi was being commandeered by Bill and friends and we would inherit their newly chartered Ethiopian Airlines 767, fully equipped with coach seating. I couldn’t help but think of the Seinfeld episode when George and Jerry were being flown to LA for a meeting in a small plane. George was mad about the size of the plane and said “I bet Ted Danson has a bigger plane then this!” Well, he certainly does.

Then it was time to go to the hotel, which wasn’t the same hotel as the night before since a last minute change has us staying here one more night. The room situation was bad. As a matter of fact, for a while there, we weren’t even sure that anyone would even have a room. Seems that while the advance team was hanging with us all day, important things like making sure rooms were being reserved and who would be staying where went unchecked.

We were all at the Novotel Hotel trying to figure out who was staying where. The front desk claimed they only had 10 rooms. We needed 18. While this mini crisis unfolded, David Braun of National Geographic and I looked on as one of the advance persons took the time to iron out her personal travel plans and another worked diligently to organize a tour of the Genocide Museum which would be closing in less than an hour. Meanwhile, we all waited. I stared out the fornt door and watched as dozens of couples had weddings in a grassy area in front of the hotel. I'm too tired to lift a camera.

When everyone finally got checked in, I learned that I could have been in my hotel much earlier since I wasn’t even staying at that hotel. I was instead at the Hotel Des Mille Collines, better known as Hotel Rwanda. In 1994, the hotel gave shelter to thousands during the Rwandan Genocide. I thought that it was going to be really cool to stay here, but I was very disappointed. Maybe I wasn’t being fair. Maybe had just reached the tipping point and exhaustion had taken over. But, when I think four star hotel, a twin bed and a plastic fan in the corner doesn’t come to mind.

My time at Hotel Rwanda will be short. Bag call is at 3:30am. Load and go is at 4am. Liberia, here we come.