Jack Gruber

Deeds

The Democratic nominee for Governor of Virginia, Creigh Deeds gave a quick speech while opening his campaign office in Falls Church, Virgina on Wednesday night. Deeds is trying to win the job of Virginia governor in the November 2009 general election.

I was sent to make photos of Deeds to soon publish with a story being written by USA TODAY reporter Kathy Kiely.

I have worked on lots of campaign and election stories with Kathy following President Obama on the campaign trail, election night in Hart Plaza in Chicago and the inauguration earlier this year. Usually, there are lots of competing media and access is controlled by the campaigns.

Wednesday night was different. Make no mistake, the race for Virginia governor is a big deal. Creigh Deeds opening of his campaign office in Falls Church in what looked to be an old beauty parlor complete with the hair washing basins was nothing of a media frenzy. There was one local television news station along with a few photographers I didn’t recognize. Deeds arrived just about on time and spoke and sweated.

It was very warm in the new office space packed with his supporters.

Watching Deeds speak to maybe 100 supporters standing on a small riser really gave sense to how tough it must be to campaign full time for the job without the huge fan fare we all see during a Presidential campaign. Nothing glamorous. Just a small riser and some campaign posters behind him taped to the walls.

On the other hand, as grueling as it must be, it looked like Deeds was actually having fun and enjoying his time there talking one on one with the people who could help him get elected.

It looked like good old fashioned campaigning.

As crowded as it was, I was trying to make interesting pictures somewhere off the path you normally see from these events. The typical image of the candidate standing and speaking in front of a big sign with his name is an easy get. Tougher is trying to find that image that is different and storytelling. I don’t think I nailed it on this assignment but there were a few close calls.

I can honestly say I worked this half hour photo op as best I could. If my pants and knees are dirty after an assignment, I need to get the spray and wash out later but I also know I worked the situation trying to find something different.

Another photographer might have seen something else I didn’t . That is always the case. Sure, I had plenty of pictures of the candidate and the story was well covered for the paper. I just came away from the night, however, knowing I didn’t really get that one definitive photo I was hoping to capture.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 2nd, 2009 at 8:17 am and is filed under Blog, On Assignment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.