Recognition is always nice. So when I opened the august issue of News Photographer Magazine, I was thrilled to see an advertisement for ZUMA Press, the agency that represents me, with one of my photographs. ZUMA is all about doing photos big when they use them. Whether it is in their advertisements or in their [...]
I had some time to kill before an assignment near the White House and decided to swing by and see if there might be some sort of protest. There always seems to be someone there protesting something. I was disappointed to see nothing was happening so I headed across Pennsylvania Ave. to Lafayette Park looking [...]
Kenneth Feinberg (born October 23, 1945, Brockton, Massachusetts)[1] is an American attorney, specializing in mediation and alternative dispute resolution. Feinberg was appointed Special Master of the U.S. Government's September 11th Victim Compensation Fund and currently serves as the Special Master for TARP Executive Compensation, popularly called the "pay czar." Additionally, Feinberg currently serves as the government-appointed administrator of the BP Deepwater Horizon Disaster Victim Compensation Fund.
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Covering Capitol Hill
I had my first opportunity to cover hearings on Capitol Hill this week and according to the Hill veteran photographers it was a pretty big event on which to get my feet wet. There was a LOT of media there. It was the Toyota hearings before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
One photographer said he had not seen it like this since the Kenneth Starr hearings. The legendary David Burnett brought up the Mark McGwire testimony. I agreed it was a lot of media to crowd into a room, but said that the mass of photographers jockeying for position was not unlike the many U.S. Open golf tournament trophy ceremonies that I had attended.
It was a long day. Since I do not yet have my permanent Senate Press Gallery credential, I had to arrive earlier to get my day pass and to acclimate myself to the dos and don’ts of navigating the Capitol and covering a congressional hearing. All went smoothly with the help of the Press Gallery staff and the other photographers covering the event.
I arrived in the hearing room about 75 minutes before the start of the hearing and chatted a bit with some of the other photographers while saying hello to those I had met in the past.
David Burnett arrived carrying a small load of equipment including his Graflex Super D, a 4-by-5 single lens reflex camera. The thing is a monster to be lugging to congressional hearings along with all of the other cameras that he uses. There is an interesting column by David on the Digital Journalist about using the camera.
Then the moment arrived to begin and as Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood entered the room everyone scrambled for position. It as a bit chaotic but as I mentioned before it was still well organized and all photographers involved where helpful and accommodating to each other.
Feb 24,2010 - Washington, District of Columbia USA - Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, appears before a Congressional panel Wednesday, and defended the performance of safety regulators in dealing with problems involving Toyota cars, including unintended acceleration. (Credit Image: © Pete Marovich/ZUMA Press)
Secretary LaHood’s testimony lasted about 3 hours during which photographers would move around a bit to try to get different angles and also leave to transmit images to their respective employers. There was a break before Akio Toyoda, the president and CEO of Toyota, would begin and then of course the jockeying for position resumed as all the photographers returned for round 2.
I stayed for about 40 minutes of Akio Toyoda’s testimony before I had to go to transmit the images to ZUMA.
It was a long day to say the least. But very interesting and enlightening.
This entry was posted on Friday, February 26th, 2010 at 11:40 am. It is filed under On Assignment and tagged with Capitol Hill, Commentary, photojournalism, photojournalist, Politics, Washington D.C.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.