Posts tagged ‘president’

President Obama Returns to Martha's Vineyard, and I Check My 'Priorities'

Two days ago, the President returned to a Martha’s Vineyard golf course very near our home, so I had the chance (away from the rest of the press) to make a new image of Mr. Obama at play. After the expected full inspection by the Secret Service ahead of the President’s arrival, there was  a wait of about 15 minutes while he played the previous hole.

There are things you can control, and particularly with the President of the U.S., even more things you can’t. Instead of playing to the 8th green where I was, the President and his foursome skipped the hole and went straight to the adjacent 9th tee, after driving his cart over to say hello. He was friendly enough in his greeting,  but said he was running late (if you’re the President, I guess you can play the just holes you want).

President Obama driving a golf cart

I had already mounted the latest version of Nikon’s tack-sharp and very fine 70-200mm f/2.8ED on my D300, figuring that would cover his short game and putting. And here comes today’s photo lesson —

What shooting mode to use? First of all, there was plenty of light, even though the subject matter was largely back-lit. I wanted a bit of depth-of-field, but since the picture was all about Mr. Obama, what’s far more important was a fast shutter speed. That dictated going to Aperture-Priority set at f/4. With the VR turned on, I ended up with a shutter speed of 1/640, which guaranteed  a sharp image.

Martha's Vineyard Gazette front page Obama in golf cart

It always makes me crazy that there are so many people who buy a fine camera and great optics, whether an SLR or a point-and-shoot, and then just leave it in AUTO mode. And yet, it’s what I see all the time, even with friends and family — they eagerly seek my advice on what to buy, and then leave in AUTO until they’re ready to buy a new camera. Here’s my point: you definitely will never learn all the options and gimmicks your new camera offers, but please, at least learn how, when, and why to use the various shooting modes.

It was all over in just a few seconds and eight frames (I’m not a fan of high-speed motor drive shooting.) Then, on the 9th tee, he was a good bit farther away, but I took a couple of more shots and caught the President in the midst of the classic Obama fist-bump with one of  his partners. That picture, appearing inside the paper and cropped a bit, was just a bit of pure lucky timing.

Obama fist bumping one of his golf partners

The President leaves the Island this evening, a day early. Now I and the rest of the Gazette staff are turning our full attention to something just as unpredictable as covering Mr. Obama: tracking Hurricane Irene.

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Anticipation: Planning a Photo of President Obama Playing Golf

I’m in the office in Connecticut this week, and not at our home on Martha’s Vineyard, where my wife and I spend much of the year, even in the winter. For a number of years, I’ve worked part-time for the Vineyard Gazette, a great paper with a history of more than 160 years. Seeing the coverage, both print and television, of President Obama’s vacation on the Vineyard for the third year in a row, I thought I’d share two images from 2009, his first year in office.

Wherever the President travels, the press follows. Being a Vineyard resident was what made possible this front-page photo of Mr. Obama on one of the island’s golf courses. A good friend’s home adjoins one of the greens, so once I knew which course he was playing, it was an easy matter to be waiting for him to arrive. Of course, his Secret Service detail (with lots of equipment) shadowed his play, and I had to have my pockets searched and all my gear checked out. But in the end, it was my picture alone, and that’s always satisfying.

Barack Obama playing golf on Martha's Vineyard

While the accredited press (myself included) operate from a local site set up by the White House press office, in this case the cafeteria of one of the island’s schools, it's never known when the President may take a break from his vacation to appear for a formal announcement. That was the case almost exactly two years ago, on August 25th, 2009, when Mr. Obama re-appointed Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Besides all the usual photos of the President and Mr. Bernanke, I particularly liked making this one – the staffer with the task of putting the Presidential Seal on the podium, and making sure, absolutely sure, that it is perfectly positioned. He probably has other duties as well.

Affixing the Presidential Seal to the podium

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"The End of the Story": Nixon Resigns, Ending the Watergate Scandal

Today marks the 36th anniversary of of Richard Nixon's resignation from the presidency. I was in Washington, working for The New York Times Magazine on what was to be the last in a series of long-form stories dedicated to Watergate and its aftermath. I remember that the issue was to be called "The End of the Story," and that while most journalists (and most of the country) felt that resignation, rather than an impeachment trial, would be the outcome, the exact timing was in doubt.

Newspaper reading 'Nixon Resigning On TV Tonight'

I was on Capitol Hill, photographing one of the members of the House Judiciary Committee, when he took a phone call indicating the resignation would come that evening. He suggested (and I already knew) that the White House was the place to be. From that moment, things played out very quickly. I remember taking a moment to shoot the picture of the young man in front of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue just because it tied the event to the location.

When President Nixon addressed the nation that evening, I chose to be in Lafayette Park, across from the White House. It probably should have been a more somber occasion, but Nixon was such a polarizing figure that, in the park and other public places, the atmosphere was festive. After all, the illegal activities that were denied for so long had now been confirmed, and millions of Americans felt vindicated in their dislike of the man and his closest associates.

Tom Brokaw watching Nixon resigning with the White House in the background

These two pictures from the park were not published the next day (or ever) but I think tell the story. Tom Brokaw, then 34 and the White House correspondent for NBC News since 1973, watched and reported on Nixon’s speech from Lafayette Park, with the White House as his backdrop and surrounded by crowds who could see Nixon on the same TV set that Brokaw was using as a monitor. The hand-lettered signs were all anti-Nixon (the one that still stands out: Jail to the Chief.) I do remember taking a published picture later that evening on Pennsylvania Avenue — a jubilant crowd carrying a long white banner: Happy Days Are Here Again.

Tom Brokaw watching Nixon resigning on television

Anyway, the resignation officially took place at noon the following day, and I had a great position at Andrews Air Force Base as still-President Nixon boarded Air Force One with his wife, family members, and aides for the flight to California. No big wave as he entered the plane, just the image of a disgraced president slowly climbing the stairs with Pat. At the bottom of the frame, his daughter, Tricia Nixon Cox, and her husband, who boarded after her parents.

Nixon boarding Air Force One

From there, it was a very quick drive back to the White House and the swearing-in of Gerald Ford as our next president. The next big story of the summer? Evel Knievel and his failed attempt to jump the Snake River Canyon in Idaho. More on that later.

This post concludes our three-part series on the Watergate scandal. Click here if you missed our earlier posts on Watergate, with photos from the Senate Watergate hearings and Nixon's televised address on Watergate.

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Nixon's First Watergate Speech

In my last post, I wrote about the 1973 Watergate hearings that ultimately led to Richard Nixon's resignation, in August 1974. My intention had been to wait until this year's anniversary of the resignation to continue the story. Then I came across  a series of 4×5 negatives from April 30, 1973 that add a bit of dimension to the story. On that date, in prime time, Nixon addressed the nation in his first televised speech on the subject of Watergate.

Trying to come up with a picture that would capture both the importance of the event and to connect it with the President's use of television, I decided to make the photos directly from the television set. Remember, in those days there were no VCRs, no TiVo, no way (at least at home) to capture an image from television except to photograph the screen, at a shutter speed slow enough to record the full set of scanning lines at a moment without subject movement. I chose  the 4×5 format, shooting 8 sheets of film, to preserve detail and because a leaf shutter would avoid the problems that happen when you try to photograph a television screen with a focal-plane shutter.

Nixon addressing the nation on the Watergate scandal

Anyway, the image was a success, and it ran big in a subsequent editorial section of The New York Times. But the speech itself was of huge importance — Nixon announced the resignations of his top aides, Bob Haldeman and John Erlichman, as well as those of the Attorney General and the White House Counsel, John Dean. In the speech, he noted that there were 1,361 days remaining in the second term of his presidency, which he wanted "to be the best days in America’s history." As it turned out, he didn’t have that that many left as president, and they weren’t the best in the nation’s history.

The speech itself is great reading — he speaks of being "shocked" and "appalled" to learn of the Watergate affair, of being determined "to get to the bottom of the matter, and that the truth should be fully brought out—no matter who was involved." At various points, the President refers to 'improper activities' and 'shady tactics.' In fact what’s most interesting in reading the full text of this speech is how easily so much of it could be transposed to other addresses of the presidents, from both parties, who have succeeded Richard Nixon.

Less than a month later, the Senate Watergate hearings began. And as I began to write this, word came that Daniel Schorr, the great CBS News correspondent (and a senior political analyst for NPR for the last 25 years) has died at 93. Besides being one of the original Murrow Boys (in the greatest era of broadcast news), Dan Schorr earned a place on Nixon’s famous "enemies list" for his political reporting.  That list grew from a 1971 memo written by John Dean, addressing "the matter of how we can maximize the fact of our incumbency in dealing with persons known to be active in their opposition to our Administration; stated a bit more bluntly—how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies."

Some things never change.

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