Photographing Candidates for Political Office

[elfs]

Christine Gregoire. Photo by Omaha.

Christine Gregoire, the governor of Washington state, does not photograph well. I've just filtered through about a hundred photographs of her at a pep rally for field volunteers for the 33rd District Democrats, and it was very hard to find one where she doesn't come off looking like Senator Palpitane's long-lost sister. Who let her website use that picture, unshopped, for her campaign website? It's unfortunate, because I think she's done a pretty good job and is far more qualified than her Republican opponent, Dino Rossi.

(I absolutely don't get why Dino Rossi is doing so well on the east side of the Cascades. Okay, it's conservative rural Washington over there, farm country for sure, but don't they understand that Rossi is totally in the pocket of West Cascadian construction interests and if he wins, he'll pour millions of dollars into "repairing" Seattle's infrastructure (and trash our mass transit system) by pulling those millions out of East Cascadia's roads and bridges budget? He's not "conservative"; he's just pandering to the anti-gay, anti-abortion crowd to further a blatantly kleptocratic political agenda.)

Shay Schual-Berke (WA District 33 Pos 1) was an easy subject for the camera. Tina Orwall, Shay's successor, photographs pretty well except when she knows there's a camera on her, then she tries too hard. Dave Upthegrove (WA District 33 Pos 2) photographs great. A bad pic of Dave is almost certainly due to a lazy photographer. Karen Keiser (WA District 33 Senate) is another who photographs easily. (And hey, she's still using my photography and art! Right on.)

I know these are very shallow considerations on which to judge a candidate, but for the past six months it's been my task to photograph these people, and I know when I get a block of Gregoire I'm going to spend at least an hour looking for the one I'm going to use for an article.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

huh? Did I miss something? I don't recall a photojournalism project...

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Nope. I'm just one of the regular photographers for Tina Orwall (http://www.electtinaorwall.com)'s campaign, and Dave's nicked a few photographs off my portfolio from time to time. Gregoire has shown up at Tina's events quite often, because she needs every vote she can and Tina, despite having a pretty easy race, has been running a very strong Get Out The Vote operation.

Her opponent (http://votetoddgibson.com/) (Oh, look, an out-of-date Wordpress site) is an idiot who's been (we think illegally) informing his supporters that he's "running unopposed." Meanwhile, he's actually spent money outside his district, putting up signage in markets where he has no voters, and we haven't seen any footwork from the Republicans.

Anyway, since Tina's GOTV operation is solid, Gregoire's shown up a few times, as have the others, either looking to support Tina or ask Tina for help supporting their campaigns. Karen's not up this year, but Gregoire definitely is, in a tight race that needs every vote she can get.