This assignment led to two issues. First, there was supposed to be someone out all day trying to recruit people to the Obama campaign. This guy was there for 5 minutes then had to take off and his replacement never showed, and neither did the third person who was supposed to get there at noon.
So, basically, I got lucky and caught this guy while he was there. If I’d put it off I wouldn’t have gotten any shots. I checked back later in the day twice to see if other people showed up so I could try and get more, but as I mentioned they never showed.
The second issue was more about ethics. While I worked at The Red & Black we’d often avoid assigning assignments to photographers where they would be photographing someone they were friends with. If for some reason a fried was photographed, we’d try to use a different photo from the take where they weren’t in it.
When I got to The Banner-Herald office I informed the editor that I knew Ellison (on the right), and we briefly discussed the ethics behind running photos of people you know. His opinion was that in this business you are likely to meet or know a lot of people, and if you don’t publish a photo for that reason you’re likely to run out of things to shoot eventually. It made sense.
The photo below isn’t great, but it was the best I could do with such little time. So without further delay…
