The party is over and now we move on. Quite a day for the journalists and editors handling the inauguration of Barack Obama. Days like this on the picture desk are quite nerve racking. Not only are you dealing with the local photos of the day, but scanning the offerings from numerous wire services. There was no shortage of photos make your picks from.
There is always that worry that you will miss a keeper looking at hundreds and hundreds of images squeezed into little thumbnails. I’m convinced that people that create these interfaces for photo browsing are all under 30 and don’t realize that the majority of the people using them go no where without reading glasses.
Watching the event on television I was struck by how quiet the crowd was while Obama gave his address. Images on the screen showed faces of people riveted to the podium (or a video screen in a lot of cases). At the time I thought perhaps the audio mix was to blame on the hush tone of the audience. I later spoke with our staff photographer Karen Schiely who was on the National Mall and she too spoke of how quiet it was during the speech.Looking at the mass of people on the mall I couldn’t imagine how you navigate from point A to point B. I asked Schiely how that worked for her and she said sometimes very easy. Schiely said, “You could be in a crowd so tightly packed that you could move even thought your feet weren’t touching the ground.”
Today its revenue day for the newspapers. Extra single copy sales and commemorative anything with Barack Obama’s picture on it from front pages to coffee mugs are being offered. Hey, somebody’s got to pay for those overpriced D.C. lodgings.
If you click on this Ohio front pages link you can take a look at the treatment that other newspapers in Ohio gave the event today. When the page opens click on a thumbnail and just use your arrow keys to naviagte.
If I didn’t feel old enough last night looking at tiny images it later occurred to me that for the first time in my life I’m older than the president.
And I thought I was supposed to feel good about this change.