Scene on the Road

November 16, 2008: Wawa #965, 23:30:06, Pump 12, 11.635 @ $1.859

As the eyes of the world were on Chicago’s Grant Park for election night some two weeks ago, I’m sure I wasn’t the only member of a special interest group watching for different things on the television as Barack Obama walked out onto the stage.

Some were looking for celebrities – Oprah (w/Stedman), Brad Pitt, Star Jones, Spike Lee, Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Will.i.am - were all spotted in the audience. Others watched to see what dress Michelle Obama would be wearing (it was a red-and-black Narciso Rodriguez). I was looking at the camera angles and trying to see which photographers were in the “buffer zone” around the stage. I was wondering which photographer would be right there behind the curtains as the President-elect and his family stepped out into the spotlights. Three who have covered Obama for years were my first guesses: Charles Ommanney, with Getty Images, who made the top photo and shoots for Newsweek; Pete Souza, former Official White House Photographer for President Reagan, and author of "The Rise Of Barack Obama,” who shot the middle one; and Callie Shell, with Aurora Photos who covered the Obama campaign for Time, who shot the photo below.

Barack Obama wasn't a conventional candidate. As President-elect, I wondered, would he show some unconventional thinking when it came to photography? I got my answer within days.

In almost every one since John F. Kennedy’s, in the days following the election there has appeared an “exclusive” behind-the-scenes view of a president-elect's first moments on the glossy pages of a big national magazine. Always captured by some world famous photojournalist, and usually, even in the days of widespread color news pictures, presented in black and white.

For Obama’s big night those pictures were taken by his personal photographer David Katz and presented to the world, not in a conventional media outlet like Newsweek’s post-election "How He Did It" issue, but as a set of 82 photographs posted on Flickr, two days after the historic election.

The Omaba campaign used the web as a direct channel to his supporters. This is a team that got Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes to create a social networking site of their own - myBarackObama.com - so it probably shouldn’t be too surprising they'd use an online community image and video hosting website to show what went on behind-the-scenes that night.

It was surprising to a lot of photographers who make their livings covering politics that a campaign staffer would be the only still photographer allowed in the room while the candidate and his family watched the election returns.

November 17, 2008: Collingswood, NJ

November 18, 2008: Flyers Skate Zone, Voorhees, NJ

November 19, 2008: Pottsgrove High School, Pottstown

November 20, 2008: Camden County’s Fugitive Safe Surrender Program

November 21, 2008: Philadelphia Marathon Preparations

November 22, 2008: Telephone Pole