Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/07/28

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Subject: [Leica] fear and loathing on the campaign trail 2004
From: bdcolen at earthlink.net (B. D. Colen)
Date: Wed Jul 28 17:51:09 2004

Damn nice shot, Kyle...

-----Original Message-----
From: lug-bounces+bdcolen=earthlink.net@leica-users.org
[mailto:lug-bounces+bdcolen=earthlink.net@leica-users.org] On Behalf Of
Kyle Cassidy
Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 2004 8:00 PM
To: 'lug@leica-users.org'
Subject: [Leica] fear and loathing on the campaign trail 2004


It was hot. It was damp. And it was raining. The rain wasn't so much
falling as it was suspended in the air, you pushed through it rather
than having it fall down upon you in the traditional way. The rain was
hot, like a shower it soaked my vest, plastered my hair to my head, made
my shoes squish, but it didn't evaporate, it had no cooling powers. All
this and I had to shove my way through 3,000 people to photograph John
Kerry the day before he was to, presumably, get nominated by his party.
The Kerry camp had booked the steps of the art museum (called the "rocky
steps" on the press kit). Nobody knew where press check in was. People
pointed left, people pointed right, police had no idea or vague ideas.
One said "around back". I went around back. Three very very serious guys
from the Secret Service emphatically assured me in the most humorless
way imaginable, that i was _not_ going in that way. "Absolutely not. Go
around front and get in line." The line through the metal detectors was
at least two hours long, I wasn't looking forward to standing in the
baking hot sun when I could be hobnobbing it up in the press tent, but I
got in line, waited, and went through the metal detectors with everybody
else. When I got to the top of the steps, I saw that press check-in was
indeed "around the back" where I'd been initially. I checked in, just as
Kerry was going on stage. Made my way around front and immediately
bumped into Molly Bingham, who was Al Gore's photographer in 2000, but
more recently fameous for going missing in Iraq (she seems to have been
found) sporting a pair of Leicas. The lighting situation was pretty bad
from down in front, very backlit sky. I eventually moved over to the
press riser and tried to get some shots of Kerry with city hall in the
background thinking "Philadelphia Magazine". I ended up staying there
for most of the event, got back down on the ground for the fireworks at
the end, but as soon as kerry got off the stage, the secret service made
all the photographers get off of the ground. Pool photographers up on
the stage, everybody else up on the risers. I'd never seen that much
security. I wasn't sure I was getting anything good from there but I
kept shooting, mostly because everybody else was still blazing away. I
noticed they never took their eyes away from their cameras. That must be
how they ended up shooting for the AP i guess. monkey see monkey do, so
i shove my camera back to my eyeball and pretty much fire any time i can
see his face. The guy next to me has a D1h and every time Kerry looks
up, he gets off 8 or 10 frames to my 2. lucky bastard. Anyway, in the
end, it turned out that my best shot was not a closeup or a wide angle
from 4 feet away, but the stuff i got from 40 yards away while he was
working the crowd on his way out. Also, i got a lot of personal
satisfaction in the realization that I liked my shot better than the
Philadelphia Inquirers.

http://www.asc.upenn.edu/usr/cassidy/pix/paw/2004/32/kerry4.jpg

kc
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In reply to: Message from KCassidy at asc.upenn.edu (Kyle Cassidy) ([Leica] fear and loathing on the campaign trail 2004)