Connor Studios Blog

Sorry to post these two videos at the end of the day on Friday.  I mean, what fun is watching a video on the internet while you AREN’T at work!?  :-)

The beauty is that you can always watch them on Monday as well!

The first is a link to a video made by a fellow photojournalist named Stephen Crowley who works for the New York Times.  It’s a glimpse at what we go through to get that photo of the President meeting with others in the Oval Office.  It’s definitely not pretty and DEFINITELY not slow!

Click here to watch his video.  He made it by attaching a point-and-shoot video camera to his SLR that he was shooting with.  Not great quality but it shows you how little time we get and what we have to work around.

The other is a time-lapse video made by Tel Aviv photographer Eyal Landesman.  I just can’t stop watching it. Once it hits the 18th second, you are hooked!

It’s hard to put in words what it was like to cover yesterday’s Inauguration.  It was at the same time awesome and a pain in the ass.  :-)  It’s probably easier if I just walk you through the day.

Most of us slept over at the Times the night before because we knew it would almost be impossible to get anywhere on Inauguration day.  The bridges were being shut from Virginia into D.C. and traffic and the Metro were supposed to be INSANE.  

Joe Eddins (our Chief Photographer) and I got up at 3:30 a.m. and were ferried over to the Capitol (or as close as we could get) by our editors at 4 a.m.  After a lengthy walk and waiting to get through security we were in position around 4:30 a.m.  It was funny when we all started doing the mental math that we now had to just stand here for around 7 hours before anything started.  I remember looking and seeing that the air temp was around 17 degrees and that didn’t include the wind that would kick up.

I was on the Balustrade position (bal⋅us⋅trade [bal-uh-streyd, bal-uh-streyd] -noun- a railing with supporting balusters) which is just above and behind where Obama would get sworn-in.  The Capitol people marked our positions and I was lucky enough to get the surprise of being behind a huge lamp post.  :-(  That’s why we get there early I guess — need to work that out.  In the end, it worked out just fine.  To my right was Time and Newsweek.

The photo above was taken from our remote camera that was in the center riser.  Joe was triggering it from his position on the main side riser.  This was his view (this was my view during the last Inauguration of Bush): The crowd was unbelievable.  I have never seen anything like it.  When we were first in position, the sun wasn’t up so you looked down the Mall and thought it was probably empty.  But all you could see was thousands of little twinkles as far as the eye could see.  We were seeing the flashes from peoples cameras the entire way down the Mall.  It was unbelievable for us to see that and realize that the entire Mall was full of hundreds of thousands of people that we couldn’t see.

Here is my view of the crowd once the sun came up: 

We were right under the Boys and Girls Choir of San Francisco that started everything off: 

We were also right under Yo-Yo Ma when he performed.  It was very pretty.  In the position we were in, we were required to wear black so that when the camera panned up for Yo-Yo Ma, we wouldn’t stand out looking like a bunch of knuckle-heads.

Biden was first to be sworn-in.  We were excited because our position usually isn’t that great for the swearing-in (much better from where Joe’s riser was).  Of course we forgot how much taller Michelle Obama is so it wasn’t that great. 

I originally took 5 cameras out.  Three of them were down for the count because of the cold weather so I was shooting with two.  One was clamped to the railing and was being triggered every time I shot the other camera.  The swearing-in only lasts 30 seconds so you are trying to get as many photos as you can from different angles and different widths (tight, medium, wide…).  

Right after the swearing-in, President Obama leaned down to kiss his youngest daughter Sasha.  Having a daughter it really almost choked me up when I saw it.

While shooting wide and tight, I really liked this picture as the “history picture”.  I think it just showed the enormity of the event while he was speaking.

Right after Obama’s speech, he turned around just to make me happy.  :-) 

I can’t imagine what it’s like to sit there as the outgoing President and watch power transfer to a person who ran mostly on not being you.  I guess you just try to be gracious and get on with your life.  The hug at the end made for a nice photo: 

At the end, Vincent Laforet who was shooting next to me for Time magazine got a photo of me: It was a cold day but definitely worth it.

The hard part was leaving.  My bags weighed in at 86 pounds which felt like 186 pounds by the end.  It was over a mile walk back to the car with all of that through a sea of people to drop it off.  Not fun by any means (especially the 100 yard up-ramp at the end).

For any photo geeks out there who wants to know about equipment brought:

Camera Bodies:

2 – Nikon D3′s / 3 – Nikon D200′s

Lenses:

300mm f2.8 / 70-200 f2.8 / 24-70mm f2.8 / 17-55mm f2.8 / 85mm f1.4 / 50mm f1.4 / 24mm tilt-shift / 45mm tilt-shift / teleconverters

Misc.:

cold weather gear / box of hand warmers / camera rain coats / two OverExposed camera plates / clamps / magic arms / Pocket Wizard radio remotes / remote cables / batteries / batteries / more batteries (and chargers) / 74 GB of compact flash cards / laptop / card readers / power strips / step stool / hard drives

I’m sure there was more but I just can’t remember it right now (a bit sore and still very tired).

In an age when my “Where Were You When” moments all involve tragedies like shuttle explosions, Oklahoma City bombings and 9-11-01, it was nice to have a good memory like this.  I couldn’t have been in a better position to take it all in — very lucky.

Grace and Nicole stopped by the Times this afternoon because we are all spending the night here to be in place for the Inauguration tomorrow.  She loved eating my credentials and thought the Inauguration Credential was the yummiest!

I will try to post some photos from tomorrow.  Just for any of you watching it from the warmth of your couch, you can try to spot me while Yo-Yo Ma is playing.  I will be on the Balustrade position which is right behind and above Obama.  All of us are required to wear black so I will be one of the guys in black with a camera.  :-)  Probably just right of center as you look at it.

I will be out there from about 4:30 – 2ish so have fun in your warm house!!  It should be pretty spectacular to see.  From my point, I will look out to see him and around 1-4 million of our closest friends on the Mall.  I will definitely have an amazing “where were you when…” moment to talk about.

This photo was taken late last week right before they finally let Burris be a Senator.  I was up in the Capitol getting stuff worked out for Inauguration and happened to be there for the photo so I shot all 12 seconds of it and took off.  The photo in the stairwell turned out a hell of a lot nicer than it looked in real life.  The funny thing is that I shot so many photos of Burris becoming a Senator and probably won’t shoot another picture of him for the rest of the year.  It was fun while it lasted.  :-)

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Erica + Josh flew back from California where they live now to have their wedding in Washington, D.C. at the end of December.  I know that most of you reading this from chilly D.C., are all having the same thought right about now…  ;-)  Originally, they were going to have a big wedding back here in May but both decided to scrap the original plans and have a small wedding in her parents home while they were back for the holidays.  I thought that was awesome.  Weddings are so personal so all you brides and grooms out there, just make sure that the wedding you are planning is the wedding YOU want.  If not, change it.  I can tell you with a great deal of certainty that Erica and Josh had a great day.

Originally, I was supposed to meet up with them while they were back to shoot their engagement photos.  Unfortunately Erica fell under the weather so we couldn’t do it as planned.  The day before their wedding, they were going to the Redskins game since they were actually home for one.  Since I was already there shooting the game, I met them up near their seats before game time and took a couple nice photos of them.

Not to toot my own horn, but this picture just doesn’t happen every day and I loved it.  The day after the game was their wedding.  After hanging out and taking some photos of Erica and her family early on, Josh arrived with a Washington Times.  Thank God I got the shot at the end of the game that ran huge on the cover of sports.  I thought it was just nice of them to pick it up to see what I got after freezing through that game.

Erica’s family’s house was this beautiful home up in NW Washington.  I always think that home weddings are so meaningful.  Erica’s mom and sister (who is expecting — very exciting!!) helped her get ready upstairs. After getting into her dress, Erica came downstairs to see Josh.  I just love this photo of the first time Josh saw her in her wedding dress. There was a lot of time spent trying to make Josh’s boutonnière work.  In the end, I think it was just too big and after all the work, Josh’s lapel went naked and the wedding went off without a hitch!  Full disclosure: I am not a boutonnière fan — I have this weird thing about seeing something in peripheral vision.  I do think they look nice on guys but I just can’t wear them.  I think Josh looked great without it!

Both were total troopers.  I forget how cold it was that day but it was one of the colder days of the year and they both wanted to do some outside photos.  You can’t tell from their smiles HOW COLD they were (especially Erica).  I joked with her that I wanted to make sure she told everyone that it was her idea to go outside so they didn’t think I was a huge jerk for forcing them into the sub-freezing weather.  :-)

Erica and Josh were always having fun all day.  They have an inside joke with portraits and wanted to make sure we got this one.  It’s always fun to work with couples who are just easy-going and have fun throughout their day. 

The ceremony was in the living room surrounded by family. I have never met two people who laughed more.  It was so much fun to be a part of their wedding.  Everyone laughed and cried — that’s what a wedding should be like! After the wedding, we headed over to the Hay Adams where they were staying to take some portraits from their room overlooking the White House and the Washington Monument.  Luckily, the Obamas hadn’t moved into the Hay Adams yet so we didn’t have to pass through all the security.  The views are amazing from the Hay Adams! After shooting on their balcony, we got a few fun photos in the room before heading to dinner. I couldn’t have had more fun with Erica and Josh.  We wish them the best!