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12 DAY CONVENTION RECAP - 2 of 12
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12 DAY CONVENTION RECAP - 2 of 12
Just for fun, “like a rock in a cops face”, we thought we’d share 3 of our favourite photos a day for the 12 cumulative days we spent covering the DNC, RNC, the Nader ‘Open The Debates’ rally, and the Ron Paul ‘Rally for the Republic’ .
Photo 1: Alex Jones Spots Michelle Malkin at the Yippie’s Denver Mint Levitation Aug 25, 2008 :
So the deal was this — ourselves and fellow cameraman Ultimate Josh (seen with the red hair to Alex Jones’ left) decided to cover Recreate68’s ‘Levitation of the Denver Mint’. While there were tonnes of cops on bikes, on foot, and horseback there, the total number of protestors equalled the total number of cops, as well as the total number of journalists. Literally a minute before anyone else spotted her (Michelle Malkin), Josh and I had also noticed her from different vantage points.
Before we could communicate this, Alex Jones came in, barrelling along in his baritone: “There’s Michelle Malkin! She wants to put Americans in Death Camps!…I’ve interviewed her…” etc. The media scrum quickly shifted from focusing on the Denver Mint Levitation to this new piece of street theatre that would have made Abbie Hoffman equally proud.
The event spawned some great film footage that Josh captured while I shot away with my Nikon d200. Here is the ‘trailer’ to our full video of the event:
Photo 2: Monday morning open walkthrough of the Pepsi Centre (er) / DNC grounds.
Even getting into the DNC on the Monday Morning of the 25th of Aug required the long security lines and the “empty your pockets, take off your shoes, let-us-rifle-through-your-bags” madness that one not only expects at the airport, but that one has come to expect after 8 years of attending US political Conventions. It’s become, um, conventional (yeah I know, pretty witty). But after the searing heat of the line, and being stuck for 45 minutes behind Joe Scarborough and his giant candy dish shaped head and his immaculately Chia-formed newsman hair, it was a nice cool relief to get inside where there was air conditioning, $6 lemonade, and $7.50 hot dogs.
It is necessary to do these early walk throughs unfettered by rabid secret security and event security, because after everything is in place it becomes a maze of Access / No Access — not to mention needing to find the places you require for your filing workspace and so on.
I might add that it’s the only time the floor directly in front of the stage is a civil place. By the time the delegates take their seating, and the aisle ‘whips’ get power mad like they are coralling dogs (photographers), and the dogs themselves (us photographers) start jostling for the best position, it all becomes very Lord of the Flies — or Lord of the Dance with people smelling like something flies would opt to land on.
However on this morning the only angle I wasn’t able to take a shot from was from the podium — and that’s because, being Canadian, I was polite and asked. I had forgotten my Golden Rule and never let that slip again. The key to these events is to look straight ahead and walk in as if you, and you alone, own the place.
This is, of course, a different story later in the day when you have a press corps quite literally only second in size to the Olympics applying the exact same Golden Rule. The more malleable of us do learn to tweak that rule — and for my own purposes it becomes The Brown Rule, which I’d be happy to explain on a different day at a different time.
Photo 3: The Obligatory, Recognizable Celebrity-non-Celebrity ‘Snap’. Joe Scarborough and his Enormous Candy Dish Noggin.
Outside the DNC on Day 2…
Ok, this is neither professional nor fair - but having hovered near Newt Gingrich’s giant, similarly shaped cranium, I was struck how sad it is that phrenology is no longer considered a science. I’m being facetious — obviously. It was actually quite pleasant to see how human many of the network talking heads are when mizing with the proles. The only exception, truly, was Sean Hannity, whom I wanted to punch even more in person than on the screen…although I didn’t see Bill O’Reilly in person either so that might have made two.
~Sven Eric Balabanoff
~ Sven Eric Balabanoff
kkk
admin @ September 7, 2008