I covered President Obama’s joint press conference at the White House today with Michael Reynolds for the European Press Agency. The joint press conference was held in the Rose Garden with Canadian Prime Minister Harper and Mexican President Calderon who where in D.C. for the North American Leaders’ Summit (NALS). The leaders discussed cooperation on a variety of issues including economic growth, security, energy and climate change.

Link and story at www.latimes.com.

Covering the President’s State of the Union Address (SOTU) at the U.S. Capitol is pretty cool. The event is full of pomp and pageantry but it is also the worst case example of hurry up and wait.

Because of the heightened security surrounding the 9:00 p.m. event, it is best to arrive early and before the perimeter lockdown that occurs at 6:00 pm. It is still possible to enter with the proper credentials. But it is a mandatory 100% ID check and if you are lacking a credential, you are out of luck. Most photographers covering the SOTU start arriving at around 4 p.m. with some coming in even earlier to set up their workspace. Most of the wire services need to set up their editing stations and make sure that their hard-wired positions or their wireless systems are all working properly.

I was also covering a 9:30 hearing that morning along with another assignment at 11:30. So my day began as it typically does at 5:00 am and I was in the Capitol by 7. Of course I was done with shooting and filing by 2, so I was in for a long down spell.

This year there were about 50 or so photographers that were credentialed for the event. That is a lot of shooters for an event were there really isn’t many convenient places to put them.

The Senate Press Photographer’s Gallery, which credentials still photographers for coverage at the U.S. Capitol, has 18 seated positions and 15 roving positions. The rovers have access to three different entrances in the galleries on the second floor where they can shoot from the steps. There is also 1 photographer who is allowed on the floor of the House for the event. This is a pool position that is rotated between the wire services from event to event.

In addition to those shooting positions, it is possible, with special permission from the gallery director, to shoot from the House Press Gallery which is the section on the second floor that is behind the Speaker’s podium. This area is best for getting the cut shots of the President during his speech as well as photos of the members of the House and Senate on the floor before and during the address. But this is also a bit more difficult to shoot from there because photographers have to shoot from behind or between the reporters who have seated positions there.

Photographers are allowed to enter the House chamber about 30 minutes prior to the entrance of the President. This is a great time to get photos of Members arriving and interacting. Sometimes you can get some really interesting images. Then, before the entrance of the President, you have the parade of Senators, Supreme Court Justices and the President’s Cabinet Members. Of course the event officially begins when the President is announced and makes his entrance.

About an hour later it is time to edit 600 frames and transmit. Of course now it is 10:00 and everyone is waiting on deadline. It was a long 16 hour day with my head not hitting the pillow until 1 a.m.

I took Wednesday off.

A full gallery of images from the 2012 State of the Union Address can be found in my archives.

UPDATE: TIME Magazine picked up the picture of President Obama hugging Gabrielle Giffords for their Pictures of the Week.

On January 20, 2009, Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in as president just days before the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. His inauguration theme: “A New Birth Of Freedom,” a phrase from the Gettysburg Address, reflected the timing.
More than a million people braved freezing temperatures on the National Mall to witness history as Obama took the oath of office. Using the same Bible Lincoln used when sworn in as president, Obama became the 44th President of the United States.
The images contained in this book bear witness to that cold, historic occasion when the dreams of a race were realized and the journey to remake America had begun.

FROM THE FORWARD by DAVID ALAN HARVEY:

Pete Marovich felt the raw power of Obama as he wandered through the crowd of roughly 1.8 million on the National Mall on that historic Tuesday (this is not counting the 250,000 official ticket holders). Pete did not have a press pass that would put him close to Obama, but he wanted to give a visual voice to the people of this country who had spoken so loudly and who, alas, had their dream realized. Pete clearly captures the mood of the day and his straightforward, no nonsense approach reflects the style of the president himself – You get what you see.

This book can be purchased at the BLURB bookstore by clicking here.

Cadets, who were not part of the graduating class, catch up on some sleep as the await the start of commencement ceremonies for their peers at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington on Saturday May 16, 2009.

Back in October when I as redesigning my website, I posted a photo I had taken from a graduation ceremony at Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Va. It was a bit of an amusing photo of non-graduating cadets in the audience and some of them had nodded off to sleep. Funny, but not uncommon at an assembly of college students, much less students in a military academy where there are more things involved in the daily life of a cadet than just classes and studying.

I am revisiting this photo because it is the subject of an amazing amount of internet searches in the past few days. Ever since President Obama’s speech concerning the war in Afghanistan before the West Point corps of cadets, this site has had A LOT of web traffic stemming from Google searches with the phrases “sleeping cadets,” “cadets sleeping,” “sleeping cadets obama…” well you get the idea.

Now I watched the speech. Yes there was at least one occasion where the camera was showing the cadet audience and in the frame was a cadet or two with their eyes closed. Again, funny but not really shocking nor in my opinion a reflection on the speech or the speaker. But all over the internet bloggers are having a field day with the images.

It will never cease to amaze me what people will search for on the internet or more importantly how much time they have on their hands. But I will say this: Everyone with time to kill.. please come visit my site at www.petemarovichimages.com. I can use the extra web traffic to increase my Google ranking!

UPDATE: I just saw this post on answers.yahoo.com from a cadet at West Point who was at the President’s speech:

I am a cadet at West Point and it’s highly disrespectful for them to fall asleep. I can say that we did sit in that auditorium for 4 hours before the President arrived-we were only allowed magazines and books. So, yes, it was difficult (considering we weren’t allowed to walk around or stand either). Not to mention, we had class from wake up at 7 unit 4 pm that day as well. It was a long day, but it was worth it.

You can see the quote and the discussion at: answers.yahoo.com.