check out the post. this year, we are asking middle and high school students to produce a documentary answering the question, what does it mean american? we are awarding $100,000 in cash prizes, including a grand prize of $5,000. the deadline for entry is january 20. for more information, go to studentcam.org. on the day arizona senator john mccain died, a group of photojournalists talked about covering him on the campaign trail, as well as their work following other presidential candidates. this is one hour 45 minutes. good evening, everyone. how is everyone doing tonight? excellent. glad to hear it. i am the education and public programs manager here. welcome to the evening's event,

which is deadlines to headlines. this is part of our programming roster in support of our newest installation. this exhibition, if you haven't seen it, it is closing in a few weeks, so now is a good time, it tells the story of america's history through photography. many of which have never been exhibited. through these photographs, we moments story of the that shape americans history, both the well known and less well-known. tonight, we are focusing on presidential elections and the people who photograph them. each of the photographers here have photographed presidential campaigns. we'll take a moment to not just appreciate their newsworthiness, but the artistry of their photographs. moderating tonight's discussion is mr. the bolts, who served on three presidential campaigns as press secretary for president

obama's campaign, national press secretary for the campaign and field director for hair dean's campaign when he was fresh out of college. his prior work includes serving as press secretary for then congressman sherrod brown's campaign for senate, communications director for rahm emanuel's first campaign for mayor, and a spokesman to the efforts to confirm justices to the supreme court. he currently serves as strategic communication services at bully pulpit. he oversees strategic indications services and fights for campaigns causes and brands to be more targeted and persuasive. without further ado please join , me in welcoming ben labolt, chip somodevilla, carolyn kaster, and damon winter to the stage. [applause]

ben: good evening, everybody. i want to start by introducing our distinguished panel, starting to my right, chip somodevilla is a senior staff photographer for getty images, based in d.c. before moving to washington in 2005, chip worked at daily newspapers including the detroit free press, fort worth star-telegram, and the fort wayne news sentinel. the white house news photographers association awarded him photographer of the year in 2010, and political photo of the year in 2006. he was part of a team of getty images photographers that were finalists for the 2016 pulitzer prize for breaking news photography. chip has extensively reported on the presidential campaigns of john mccain, mitt romney, barack obama, and many other candidates. carolyn kaster is a photo journalist with the associated

press. carolyn joined the ap in harrisburg, pennsylvania in 2002, and moved to d.c. in 2009. she's won multiple awards for her work. she's created stills and video essays for national and international assignments, including sports, volcanoes, hurricanes, nuns, and coal miners. [laughter] ben: she has covered the presidential campaigns of barack obama, hillary clinton, john mccain, as well as donald trump, and her work now primarily deals with u.s. politics, including the trump white house. and to the far right, damon winter, a staff photographer for the new york times. damon joined the times in 2007 as a feature photographer. previously, he was a staff photographer at the los angeles times. he's covered a broad range of stories, including conflicts in israel and afghanistan, the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in new york, the olympic games, and

feature stories in vietnam, cuba, russia, and elsewhere. mr. winter won a 2009 pulitzer prize in feature photography for his memorable array of pictures deftly capturing multiple assets of barack obama's 2008 presidential campaign. a fun night for me, some familiar faces from the campaign trail, as well as the government. we're going to go in sequence here. if i can turn my device on. and walk through each of the photographers' work on various presidential campaigns over the past few election cycles. so chip, we'll start with you. and if you could take us through the moment, take us through the shot, take us through any memories that are appropriate from the campaigns you covered, and it is particularly poignant to see senator mccain tonight.

chip: it is indeed. carolyn and i worked closely together on senator mccain's campaign in 2008. and i guess i could speak for both of us, that we're very saddened of the news of his death today. carolyn: yes. chip: i covered senator mccain in washington on capitol hill and in his presidential campaign, and closely after that in washington. both of us. i found him to be an incredible human being and a wonderful leader, and definitely a maverick, which is what people called him. i think they called him a maverick because they couldn't think of anything else to call him. [laughter] he was very, very good at upsetting people on the left and

the right. and so, i think maverick is a great moniker for that. this image is from the 2008 campaign, from moon township, pennsylvania. it was october 21, so just a few weeks before the election. we, as news photographers, we sort of embed into a campaign. we follow a candidate from place to place, city to city, event two event, sometimes four or five 420 end 6 events a day. we try as hard as we can to make sure that we are covering the event as an entirety, as a story, a beginning, middle, and an end, as best as we can. needless to say, if we're doing multiple cities and multiple events per day, those things can kind of become monotonous or repetitive. when an event happens like this and senator mccain has finished

his speech, stepped off the stage, and he's working the rope line, a term that is very line, a term that is very familiar to us. if you have covered political news, you know this is working the rope line. he goes down and he greets supporters, shakes hands, and it just so happened that just at this moment, the room was very dark as you can see. someone had a camera. this was before iphones were in everybody's pocket. we still had point-and-shoot cameras. the camera would emit a red beam. you probably remember. some of you remember this. the camera would emit a red beam to help you focus in the dark. it would emit the beam, focus, then you would take the picture. i was shooting in hopes of synchronizing my photograph with the flash from someone else's camera. but it didn't work out. instead i got second place and i got the red beam lighting up his face.

actually, it ended up looking kind of cool. ben: it was before the selfie era. chip: and speaking of synchronizing the flash, someone else's flash with my camera, that's what's happening here. the photographer on the left, his flash is lighting up mitt romney as he kisses the bride. it so happened that one of his rallies in sioux city, iowa, or one of his events, it was the same time these folks were getting married at the hotel. on his way out, he greeted the groom and bride and gave a good luck kiss. ben: did any of you cover both of the romney campaigns and have any observations on how that changed over time? chip: i did not cover 2008, no. carolyn: no. ben: you only got him when he was ready for prime time. chip: exactly. again, this is senator mccain.

this is in plant city, florida, along the i-40 corridor. it stretches from orlando over to tampa and it bisects the state. if you want to win the white house, you have to win florida. and if you want to win florida, then you have to win the i-40 corridor. this is a famous -- it's a farm stand, but they're also famous for making these incredible strawberry shortcakes. i'm trying to remember the name of the place. yeah, parksdale farms. right on the side of the highway. every presidential candidate, if they want to win the white house, they stop here and they order a giant pile of strawberry shortcakes, and eat them. [laughter] ben: and i had gone around behind the counter -- when a presidential campaign lands somewhere and you're not

expecting it, it can be a shocking experience. buses pull up, secret service piles out. journalists pile out. aides pile out. ben piles out. all these people come out and land on you and it's chaos. depending on the temperament of the candidates, is he or she unpredictable, are they jovial, are they fearless, all of that can color the process. i ran around behind the counter and i noticed the screen above senator mccain's head was obscuring him. i thought it was going to be a cool picture. it didn't work. i was a little disappointed. just as i was about to run back around the counter to get him greeting people, he just leans down and pops his head through the window. much to my surprise. he started shaking hands with the folks who work there and it ended up making a fun picture. ben: this reminds me of a

particular type of event on the campaign trail, which we would call otr. you have several staged events throughout the course of the day, but aside from the rope line, you weren't really getting shots of the candidate with people. so, the campaigns would set up these unannounced stops where it looked like the candidate was out on the road, interacting with normal people. sometimes just a handful of photographers would peel off for that type of photo opportunity. but i always thought they were the most fun events on the campaign trail because you're drinking coffee and eating pie and you're going to the little hotdog stands. [laughter] carolyn: good stuff. [laughter] chip: one of the things john mccain and mitt romney had in common was that they did not fear me.

they were confident in who they were as candidates and, more importantly, as people. and so they were comfortable with me going behind the scenes, so to speak, behind the scenes. and so when mr. mccain, senator mccain, came out onto the trail in support of mitt romney governor romney in 2012, he , climbed onto governor romney's bus and invited me along. and so i was able to hang out with them while they were visiting, and as you can see from this picture, senator mccain had some advice. and he was giving it. in the background there, that is one of the original campaign banners for mitt romney's dad, and he kept it hanging there on his bus. and it was a really cool little

-- a little piece of history that kind of ties the future and the past together. and i was always working hard to try to include that in the photograph. ben: what's mitt drinking? chip: he's drinking a diet coke. [laughter] caffeine free diet coke. ben: you know, senator mccain had a reputation of providing a lot of press access compared to other candidates, starting with you know the straight talk express branding in did you feel 2000. that won the trail? did it feel different from other campaigns the two of you covered? carolyn: absolutely, for me, mccain especially on the bus. , we were talking about the bus earlier. he would invite us to the back of the bus, and he had a table, and he always -- he would have a milkshake. he would be like sucking on the milkshake and talking to you, and it just felt a real open, easy thing. and you're speeding down the highway on this bus, eating ice cream.

so, he was very comfortable in his own skin. and he -- i remember the first thing he did when the campaign was over is he shed his secret service detail and went and bought himself his own cup of coffee. he just wanted to be out and be himself. but anyway, yeah. >> [laughter] ben: what was happening here? >> [laughter] chip: this is this is governor , romney again in -- it was in march. so we were still in primary season. i think it was before super tuesday, or it maybe it may have been after. he is -- he had gone into one of these otr's that you were talking about, ben, and he'd

gone into a restaurant. this young woman here, jessica, she had made a sketch of governor romney and heard that he was coming. and so she went to the restaurant and presented him with a sketch, and he signed it for her. and again, you know, just being himself, confident in who he is and all about, he kind of held at the sketch to say, pretty good, looks just like me. >> [laughter] ben: a question for all three of you. this wasn't an infrequent occurrence, not the drawing, but people bringing gifts for the candidates along the campaign trail. what is the weirdest thing you saw a voter bring a candidate on the campaign trail? >> this. >> [laughter] carolyn: there was a lot of art. a lot of people expressing themselves in very personal ways. you know, i saw a melon. i think hillary got a melon. you know, like people grow things, things that mean

something to them. and that was like the most wonderful way to see the country. because people, you got to see people all over the country talking about and bringing things that were important to them. chip: i'm trying to remember. i can't remember which campaign, but i remember somebody bringing a pie to the front row of an event. presenting a pie. i don't know if they wanted to get a signature on the pie or what, but i thought that was pretty bizarre. ben: it's very hard to maintain your weight on a campaign. you're eating more than three meals a day. there's great snacks that are brought to every event. i think during the ohio primary in 2008, i think i gained 20 pounds in a month. >> [laughter] >> believable. >> not so on the trump campaign. >> interesting. >> there was nothing. >> [laughter]

chip: there was water provided at one event, but it was trump-branded water with his face on it. ben: you didn't get the wine? >> [laughter] chip: this is the convention in tampa. governor romney had just given his acceptance speech. and then congressman paul ryan, now speaker of the house, had joined him on stage. and at the conventions, we used -- we use a lot of remote cameras. so this camera was fired by remote control. i'm actually in the picture, somewhere down there in the front, photographing at the edge of the stage. so i was taking this picture at the same time it was making a tighter photograph of the two of them on stage from a lower angle. ben: from the campaign side, you know there's really a year , of planning that goes into a convention. and you bring in professional you know television producers

and people who have worked on the oscars and the golden globes to set up these events. we always had a very specific story we wanted to tell and a very specific picture we wanted to show. obviously you all wanted to see some news and had a slightly different agenda than we did. when you went to an event that is staged, how did you find a moment that felt different? carolyn: you look really hard. you know what you know what the , story is going into the event, but there's always some little nugget behind the scenes, or somebody shows a piece of paper or makes an expression. you chase the light first. that's kind of how i do it. but then you look really hard and work really hard. because there's always a story to tell. this is stagecraft, political

theater, but you always try to lift the veil so people can see what these people are like, get to know them a little bit. that is what i try to see when i am going into such an extravaganza like that. >> [laughter] >> i sort of felt like it was my duty to circumvent those controls as much as possible every single day. you know, the picture that the campaign wanted to present, i think i tried my best not to make that picture as best i like i saidok for, these little moments of truth or , sincerity in very controlled, very tightly staged events. you know, i think i can remember covering trump's campaign, not going up onto the risers they probably -- provided for you, maybe once or twice a handful of , times, because they would try to narrow down your perspective to such a tightly controlled

but it just, it forced you to be creative and think differently, and to find a way to tell either the story of the day with a larger arc of the story through every possible means at your disposal. ben: this was the constant struggle, you know being on a , campaign, but hopefully we can all have a drink at the end of the day. >> yeah. >> i hope so. carolyn: absolutely. >> i hope so. chip: well, kind of talking about the monotony of the campaign and doing something away from where they're shining the spotlight, in 2012, i had gotten my first iphone right before the campaign started. and one of the -- there was no instagram yet. or no, instagram had just started. and i was trying to find a way

to stimulate myself and make myself feel like i wasn't doing the same kind of robotic thing day in and day out. so, i was able to kind of move around in between the events that were scheduled and make pictures of campaign life. and the little moments between the moments that that were part , of the official narrative. and so i started making these diptychs, where i would take my phone and just make a quick picture of something that i found interesting, and then i work hard to try to go at the end of the day and find a couple pictures that i thought kind of worked together, that showed some comparisons, some contrast, some humor perhaps. and so i made a series of these, these diptychs. so on the top there, that is senator marco rubio. and that was at a debate. was -- yeah, he was doing kind of what we call a

television hit. where a lot of times at debates, networks will set up miniature studios in one large room, and each of the candidates will go and sit for a few minutes at each of these little mini studios and get some time to talk. and so that was in denver. one below there is in the same room, the spin room, and that was fox, a local television correspondent standing on an apple box. we call those apple boxes. they are just a way for the reporters to stand a little higher, have a little perspective, look better on television. those are from the spin room in denver after -- actually this was before the big debate. ben: you talked about capturing is aign life, which really life of its own, and feels very different from covering the government or working for the government, but explain to us what it what it was like to be , on the road every day for a year or two, covering a campaign, just in terms of what

were the logistics? were you staying at the four seasons? were you eating caviar? that's, that is how i have seen it depicted in the movies. >> [laughter] >> with romney you were. >> [laughter] carolyn: you learn a lot about yourself covering a campaign. you learn what it's like to be absolutely exhausted. you learn about pocket management because you have to know where everything is because when you're exhausted, you don't really remember. you learn how to work with people because you'll get the flu, and that person will haul you on the plane, and then you will haul that person on the plane when they get the flu. so it is this like marathon. you see the best and worst of everyone. my gosh, i learned a lot about myself covering campaigns. and again, you gain a lot of weight. when you are like in texas, you eat a lot of tex-mex. when you're in philly, you eat cheesesteaks. when you are in ohio, it is like

i don't know. there's a lot of logistics, a lot of moving. you can get black and blue running in and out of things. chip and i have a really great story -- [laughter] chip: experience. carolyn: experience with the hillary campaign, right? no, mccain. see, it's all just one. rooms, curtains, buses. tell the person on the phone i'm , in a bus. i'm in a van. you don't exactly know where you are when you are in these vehicles. but the wheels were falling off the campaign, and as the campaigns kind of lose money, and everybody's struggling for air, there's no seats on the plane. and the organization is moving fast, and you're going from city to city. you probably tell it the best. chip: no, no, keep going, you're doing great. carolyn: so we get to the tarmac -- chip: first, we were on an airplane. carolyn: yeah, we were on an

airplane. chip: what happens is the campaign will rent a charter aircraft. and what traditional is the candidate sits at the front and kind of blocks off the first ird for campaign staff and the candidate. and in the back is where the press is. and what happens is, as you get closer and closer to campaign day -- or election day, those seats on the airplane become more and more valuable. and what happens is sometimes, as was the case with me with mccain, i was deemed not very important, and i was kicked off the airplane so that someone from a network television crew could come in and sit on the airplane. carolyn: the politics of media. chip: which the campaign thought was more valuable. i eventually made an argument to the campaign otherwise, and i was put back on the plane four days later. but as the money starts to disappear, and like carolyn said, the wheels start to come

off the campaign at one point we , landed -- it was, gosh election eve, and we landed in , one plane -- carolyn: for like a long time. chip: oh yeah. >> [laughter] chip: yeah, that was a whirlwind. we landed on one plane, and while we were at the event, they took everything off that plane and put it onto two smaller planes, because they were less expensive than the large plane. and so one of the comforts of the campaign is that you end where you start. and so if a plane lands and you jump in the vans or the bus or whatever and you come back you're sure to come back to the , place where you left. you get off the plane and there you go. carolyn: and that's like your fourth plane of the day or whatever. chip: fourth flight. carolyn: you're just kind of holding onto the horse, running really hard. and we got, we couldn't -- there were no seats for us on one plane. so they put us in the back of a

pickup truck -- chip: in the middle of the night. carolyn: in the middle of the night. and i was really tired. my memory is even kind of crazy. and they drove us to the next plane. and and there were no stairs. and they hoisted us up. chip: like this, like this into this jet. carolyn: and then there weren't any -- were there any seats? chip: there were, because we flew. carolyn: yeah. chip: the faa is particular about this. you've got to have a seat to fly. so yeah, we climbed onto that first plane, that regional jet, and we literally get on and we walk down the entire length of the airplane going like this. there are no seats. we turn around and go, there's no seats. there's no seats. well, get off the airplane. get off the airplane. so we run and get off the airplane. and then that guy, that nice guy through us in his pickup truck. and we asked the campaign, where is the other airplane? they said, we don't know. carolyn: but luckily the guy knew the airport. that's just kind of what it's

like. it is like you're moving really fast. you break everything. like election night i broke -- oh yeah. you break stuff. damon: i think on the dean campaign, at least we made the right decision. we knew only couldn't tell people that they couldn't fly anymore. there were no planes left. the campaign ended, and i think folks knew the trajectory we were headed on after the scream. chip: some more of these dyptichs, that's governor romney at the same event. it was a pancake breakfast. carolyn: pancakes. chip: pancakes. that's what campaigns run on. >> [laughter] [speaking simultaneously] when until you get to damon's. that is pretty self-evident.

again, 2012, this was an event at a fairground, and one of the things that, again that you don't think of when you are covering, or you are ingesting news as a consumer of news, you don't -- you see the main event, you see the candidate on the stage, people introducing the candidate, the remarks, then you know they cut away from it. there is the spin there is a lot . -- there is the spin. there is a lot of logistical work, as we all know, but goes into these events. this is a line of city buses that are surrounding to fairground as a barrier, as a mobile wall, as a security fence. that was one way they provided security for the president because he wasn't the president at the time. it is striking when you walk around from place to place and

you look over in there is a wall of buses, and you know that it is there for security purposes. and then that also when that , dawns on you, then you are "whoa, security is a very serious deal." that is another aspect of the campaign that not a lot of people know about. ben: building campaigns is an art. i think a great book i would recommend is "the making of a president" that studies the art of how the president is visually presented at events. this is the advanced staff at the white house. it is their full-time job to present the candidate and the event. so to determine what the shot is they would like to see in the paper that day. chip: more of that same fairground event. working to get both sides of the camera in there, the candidate and the people listening.

this was new mexico, this is actually 2008. >> he didn't have a lot of gray hair back then. chip: no look how young. , no gray hair. ben: what were you doing with a light? chip: it was interesting. this was in an auditorium in new mexico, and what we try to do is, we want to give people the bread and butter. we want to give them what they need. so there is sort of a mantra in photography wide, medium, tight. and you want to -- and you can do that in motion pictures also. you start with and establishing shot, you can move in for something medium to give a sense of place and time, and then you give something tight. that gives editors a variety of images to use in a variety of places, in a variety of media. so after resort of get our bread

and broader -- and butter shots, then i told by the wonderful am people that i work with, they are amazing. they say stretch your wings, go out and do what you want to do. zig what everyone else zags. try to find something interesting. at the time, senator obama was taking questions from the audience, and it was a lot of young people. and so a find -- i find a spot on this other side of the auditorium where young people are raising their hands to ask questions. i just kind of wind it up and it was a little serendipity involved in all of these pictures, all of them, where the person has to stand in just the right place, the subject is in the right place and it just all kind of comes together. and you know, this is not your typical newspaper picture. i am always trying to push the limits also of what people should expect when they see a news photograph.

i want to give them something that is not only informative but a little bit entertaining and maybe sometimes challenging. 2012, he had walked off stage, worked the rope line a little bit and was headed back to the motorcade, and the light just fell in the right place at the right time. >> [laughter] ben: that is a subtle one. >> [laughter] ben: how do you -- i see this picture, it is a great one. how do you capture these moments of raw authenticity on the campaign trail? campaigns and candidates can be pretty can't. chip: this was november 4, right before election day. and i remember -- or you there? carolyn: i was there too. chip: this was cincinnati. and it was a really huge rally.

i mean, there were a lot of people. it was an entire arena. i remember president obama had deep reservoirs of energy. he was really, really good about understanding what was needed and how how hard he had to push, , and when he had to push, and he seemed to be always full of energy. it was an amazing feat because, the people who run for president, i have no idea how they do it. i have no clue. but i remember this event particularly he was tired. and sometimes when we are tired, we get a little goofy. >> [laughter] chip: and he had had his tie on earlier in the day and took it off. this was the last event of the day. and he -- this was on the way in, so he had not made his speech yet. and he came into the arena. as newsknow, photographers we are always working with the secret service and the campaign staff about

where we can stand because they have a very firm idea about where the candidate is going to go and how the motion will play out. and of course, secret service, the last thing they want in the world is a surprise. they don't want anything to go don'tay that they suspect. and so have particular places they like for us to stand when a candidate, or the president comes into the room. and sometimes that place is not good, and sometimes it is. it is always a role of the dice -- a roll of the dice because every arena and is and is different. i just happened to be standing here when he saw something that made him happy. >> [laughter] ben: i think he was also anticipating the last days of his final campaign. chip: definitely. we are seeing a bit of that breaking through. this is 2008. i remember shooting that same moment. it was a big moment. ben: primary or general? chip: this is general.

no no, this is primary. , this was june 3 in st. paul. june 3 of 2008 in st. paul, it was right before the south dakota/montana primaries. and senator clinton, mathematically i don't think she could catch him, mathematically -- but she had not yet conceded. it was over, he had the nomination pretty much at this point. again going back to what we were talking about the secret service not liking surprises, senator obama got secret service protection earlier than all of the other candidates because of the -- frankly because of the threats against his safety being the first african-american candidate, or the first successful candidate. usually they don't get secret service until after the conventions. it is kind of standard operating procedure for the nominees to get secret service but not for candidates. so this was at the excel center,

he had finished his speech and was working the rope line. this young lady, you know, she couldn't hold back. as she grabbed him, and as soon as she pulled him in, he was in proximity of everyone else. all of these hands came cascading over and were grabbing him. i wish i could show you the whole take because i just laid down on the shutter and was like, this is too good. you can see the secret service hands come in on top of the other hands, just peeling them off peeling them off and pulling , senator obama and our. -- senator obama out. but it was great. it was a funny thing. another hug. this was september 7 in 2012 in iowa. the president had a really, really a strong, emotional connection to iowa. it is where he started, and it

is where he finished. his last campaign rally as a candidate was in iowa. ben: and i think that was always part of the promises that if he could win in a state that was over 95% white that there was a potential path to electing the first african-american president. that was always what we thought on the campaign. chip: election night, chicago. oops. gosh, a lot of pictures. this is 2008. i remember talking with the campaign, some of the -- we call them handlers, folks that help us get from place to place. and one of the handlers in 2008, early on said he saw me taking pictures and said, i don't like silhouettes. he said it to me just like that.

he goes i don't like , silhouettes. >> [laughter] chip: he shall remain unnamed. >> about 22 years old, right through to her ben: i said ok, fine. , this is one we had digital -- this is when we had digital cameras. i leaned over and i said, -- i wanted to prove him wrong. i showed the photograph to the handler, and it was not this picture but something similar to this in the handler went, oh, all right. >> [laughter] chip: that's cool. >> [laughter] chip: now we are going to get into the most recent election. this was the first debate, the first republican debate in cleveland, ohio. and look how many of them were on stage. that was amazing. i used the reflection in the arena.

trump campaign rally. ben: several of you cover the -- covered the trump campaign. when is, when is the moment you first really felt him breaking through with the crowds? was it from the very beginning or was there sort of a tipping point in the race? know, after covering campaigns, i always figure or started to realize you are so , close to the campaign that it is hard to get a big picture, get perspective. i always figure that you are around the most ardent supporters, the most diehard of fans, and it is a little hard to gauge really how that reflects on how the whole rest of the country is thinking. i don't think up until 3:00 a.m. on election night i actually thought that he actually had a chance of winning. i was, of course, totally wrong, but i, but i -- it was hard for

me to come to terms with what i had been seeing over the course of the year sort of reflecting a larger movement across the country, and that a good half of the country felt similar enough to what i was seeing at these rallies to vote for him. that was a big surprise for me. rally? e chip: this young man was dressed as trump. had a blonde wig on, soon, red tie -- suit, red tie. he wept through the entire speech. i remember that guy. debate. >> [laughter] ben: what was that moment of first contact between the two of them light, do you remember it like? chip: did -- carolyn: did they shake hands? chip: at the first debate they

did. i didn't go to the first debate. ben: these rallies got pretty intense, at least on television. i didn't work on the 2016 campaign. not only against the other campaigns, but you know, he would call out the press on the stage. did you ever feel any consequences from that in the crowds are at the events that you had not seen on a campaign before? damon: yeah, it was constant. it was constant. it was like a daily struggle. i have covered conflict before and you know, i have come home from some of these trips not feeling particularly well. my family sort of notices a change in me. it was exactly the same when i had come off a couple of weeks of covering the trump campaign. i felt like i had been in a protracted period of combat because it was nonstop people both from the campaign, from the supporters, and it was hard for

you not to internalize that. i remember at a couple of rallies there was a t-shirt that i saw that i could not believe. it said, "rope, tree, journalists, some assembly required." carolyn: yeah i saw that. , i saw that. damon: and yet, it was shocking. it was shocking to me that he could convince his supporters that a healthy press was not in their best interest. this is sarasota, florida. this is november 7. right before the election day. upp: taking on -- picking where damon said about 3:00 a.m. on election night, we were there together in new york, and it is true. i do not think anybody in the

room in new york on election , night thought that he was going to win. and i also don't think that he thought he was going to win. and with that in mind, he would go to these campaign events and have fun. he loved the crowds and the crowds loved him. ben: present tense. yeah, you are right. the crowds love him and he loves them. there is a special energy that happens. it happened with president obama, it happens when you get a person up there who really connects, and can receive, and transmit this feeling. and if you have never experienced it, then i encourage you to. if you have not been to a political rally, particularly for a candidate you support,

then i encourage you to because there is something very electric and spectacular about it. we try our hardest to capture that in photographs, but he was just having fun. somebody had this mask on in the crowd, and he stepped away from the microphone and said give that to me, give that to me. he grabbed it and held it next to his face. we photograph going, oh my god. >> [laughter] chip: great picture. chip ono you remember, , election night, going back to the him not thinking he would night filledthe on. i remember taking a picture of a table filled with empty drinks in the night went on and on, and our handlers were more and more drunk. by the end of the night, the people the staff was stumbling , drunk. i don't think they thought they had to get up and go to work tomorrow. chip: yeah indeed. , indeed.

i remember his campaign staff's reaction when it started to really hit home that they had won, and they were just genuinely, like, surprised and thrilled all at the same time. it was really something, something to witness. you know, this is the convention. love these when they make these fake cutouts. you guys recently had some cool interactions with people wearing masks. carolyn: yeah. ben: they are always fun. they are a photographer's dream. you are walking around the convention floor and, like what carolyn said, you are trying so hard to find something interesting, and these masks pop up. you are like, yes. carolyn: he is everywhere. >> [laughter] chip: this is the convention again, and the balloons had started to fall from the ceiling.

he was kind of standing in back, and he had brought his family on stage and pushed them forward so they could be part of the event, and he was leaning back and made this face and it was kind of funny. what is amazing is how much baron has grown. baron i think is almost as tall as his dad now. yeah. they were doing mic check. >> [laughter] chip: mic check at the convention. [applause] ben: thanks, chip. now we will turn -- [applause] ben: carolyn, your up next. carolyn: that is me. i took this picture while mccain was actually speaking. you kind of when you feel like , you can move, you move. and this was behind -- this was

a flag that was behind him on stage, and it was a real quick run around. and the american flag is one of the main characters of what we do. they are everywhere, and they are a part of making it look like a campaign. but the light was pretty. ben: how did you capture those silhouettes in motion? carolyn: the people what they do , is they put the big flag behind the candidate and they will have people on bleachers cheering behind -- there is the candidate at the podium with all of his supporters cheering behind and then a big flag and will have people on bleachersths the stage. so you got this little , lightytey, painter thing. ben: the lights cast multiple shadows. carolyn: yes, see can be transfixed but you have to work really fast.

you cannot be roaming around. you can't miss the bus. this was right after sarah palin joined the mccain campaign, which transformed his campaign. he is this war hero, both feet on the ground. people, you know saw him and , weeped. veterans would come and see him, and then sarah palin came, and it just went boom. it just it was something to see. ,it added a whole new energy. chip: i remember waking up the day she was chosen, and we had 10 potential vp picks for mccain we had studied, and she was not on the list. >> [laughter] carolyn: nobody expected it. chip: it takes a lot of time to put together and we did not have a book on her, and she had a really great moment at the

convention, and the polls started to move for the first time in a long time during the campaign. we were scrambling to get our house in order, and then she did a now famous interview with katie couric. carolyn: right. right. chip: katie did a better job and -- then we can do on the campaign. >> [laughter] carolyn: so this, we are going back. this was -- i think was this in , ohio? ben: crown point, indiana. carolyn: that is exactly what it is. yeah, that is crown point, indiana. that is a shot of crown royal. she picked what she wanted to have. and so we get to the bar. it was one of those otr's. that is the owner of the bar in white there watching her. i am like, if she goes to a bar she is going to have to drink. because what they want -- what they are doing is being with

people in their own spaces and identifying with them and reacting. what you want to get is that interaction, if you can get it. so i blew off the rest of the bar, all of the greeting thinking, she is going to go , drink. i got myself behind the bar and saw where they were kind of clearing a space for her, and i planted myself there, and i waited and she showed up. she was eyeing the shot of crown royal, and they loved her for drinking that crown royal. she drank it, and you know she has had it before. no, it was a real, it was a nice moment. much orchestrated. this is at a point in the campaign where obama had been up for him on time and it did not look like clinton was going to

win. but you talked about that with donald trump. she loosened up as a result of that and she had these great moments of connection on the campaign trail and she became a very, very good candidate that was very, very hard to beat for a longtime. i think that indiana primary in particular, i remember what a great candidate she was. carolyn: you could see that she was listening to people. she really worked on that connection. it was genuine. in campaign everybody wants, everybody has some thing to talk to their person about and it is this intense, emotional thing and all these hands look like they were going to reach out and grab her. that guy was so sincere and he wants to be heard. everybody wants to be heard. again, it is a wonderful way to see the country and different

people. sometimes you get to stand in those buffers for a little while before the candidates come out and those people will talk to you and tell you, i have been here since 4:00 in the morning standing in this spot. you really understand how people love their candidates. that is why you should go to a rally. this is on a tarmac. this is one of those holding onto the horse moments. i cannot believe the energy she had. it was like a miracle because we were all so tired. she came back to see how we decorated the back of the plane. this is where the cameras were. this is where it is kind of crazy. she wishes having a good time with us. >> the end of the day on the campaign trail is a really special moment. everybody is tired, we are delirious. this moment happens less now,

but can one of you describe the orange challenge that happened on the press charter over the years? so you are in these planes and when the plane starts the plane is going like this. somebody in the back of the plane has oranges so we don't get scurvy or something. [laughter] upolyn: as the plane goes somebody in the back rolls the orange and tries to get it to the front of the plane where the candidate is. rowdy, manic,s weird orange rolling, but it is really fun and it makes the whole thing possible, the energy management possible. it is really funny. she came back on valentine's day on the plane and brought the

reporter's chocolates. she is talking to somebody's fiance on the phone. it just kind of shows how she led in that came -- with that campaign with that face and this open, smiling thing. it was a sweet moment for us. then a flash.- i believe in flash on planes. ben: it takes a lot of courage for the candidate to come to the back of the plane, doesn't it? carolyn: yes. reporters will ask any kind of questions. if things are on a downturn it is a hard thing for a candidate to open yourself up to that. secretuld have their place in the front of the plane. we cannot just waltz up there. like the most

important moments for the candidates to walk back to because you could always smell it when they were hiding. carolyn: you could feel it and you could feel the days, lake chip -- like chip says, they are tired because it is exhausting. you can feel it. like a veryoks difficult and rare moment to capture. the moment that the candidate does not always exposed to the world every day. carolyn: that is what that picture meant. when i took it, that is not necessarily what was happening. were in pennsylvania, the pizza capital of pennsylvania and hillary loved pennsylvania and kind of claimed pennsylvania for her heart. to eat pizza. we get to the pizza place and i did the same thing at the shop place.

you have to go where she will eat the pizza. i planted myself by where it was logical and she would eat the pizza. you always watch and you look really hard and they took a long lens out and i watched her work the crowd and i caught somebody's flash. what that means is, i wish is kind of exposing for the window like, i was playing with the light because they did not really have -- i was not in the position for anything. that was just a gift, that picture. it just told about how tired we all can be. that picture got play after she did not get the nomination. this is such an interesting photo only talk about perception.

you stumbled across this photo that is really humanizing and a lot of times the candidates want to be presented as superhuman, impenetrable, and breakable, go, go, go with this is a photo that is so beautiful and touching and shows all of her lines, all of her experience and a varied honorable moment. a kind of imagine that she probably would not like this photo. that all of us looking at this photo would absolutely love it and we think it says a lot in a really wonderful way. this reminds me of what it is like to walk backstage and see the candidates. carolyn: it is that trying to lift the veil and show people what these people are like. every once in a while it happens. [laughter] carolyn: speaking of lifting the veil.

yeah. joe biden goes into a diner. [laughter] carolyn: we get into this diner and this was in ohio. and you gothe diner from table to table comma eat some french fries with people, blah, but the bikers were at the very end of the diner. it has to be about the bikers. and io the meat hamburger am like, it is the bikers, i need to be with the bikers. but they pull us out halfway through the diner and we missed the bikers. but this handler who i have hillary's campaign and have known for a long time came back into the van and pulled me out and brought me

back inside i can photograph him meeting the bikers. late, it was after they already had the meeting and this woman pulled the chair up to sit in front so they could pose for a picture. this is where -- the moments are not the moments they give you. the moments are the moments after the picture was taken. this is when they are talking up, thank you for being here. funny littles biden moment. he is a minister. things inll of these an ohio diner. i like that one. chip: carolyn and i are

technically competitors. i can tell you that when this picture came across the wire, the competitors rely, oh my god. [laughter] i am quitting. i could never do it that good. i am finished. ben: i thought that picture and this capture part of the essence of joe biden. i always thought president obama's really ugly charismatic in front of a large crowd and vice president biden is brilliantly charismatic in these one-on-one interactions. it he shared french fries all over the country. [laughter] carolyn: he would sit down at the table, eat the ice cream and people just love him. women love him, men love him, .ids he is a very personal person.

are picture just shows that we went from diner to diner and he talked to people and listened to them. this picture also talks about how you have to get close. room and you say to the agent, how about right there? so you place yourself anticipating the light and who might look sparkly. that is just one of those diner moments, campaign pictures. vice president biden lives for these moments. this is why he does what he does. sure it there is policy and governance, but this is why he does what he does. carolyn: he is magic. it is something to see. this picture -- i gave up a lot to get this picture.

we going to a campaign event and obama floats up on stage like, i am here and everybody cheers. but this was more about the stagecraft and they offered us a cherry picker. if i went up in a cherry picker i know i probably might not get down in time for anything else. at the associated press, how we work events with the president, we always have someone on the back stand. i thought, ok, take a chance to get this picture and it just shows a little bit of behind-the-scenes of him coming out from his security pod and it looks like he is about to start running and launch onto the stage. this is what a bus tour looks like in the midwest. [laughter] picture was born out of frustration.

and we are the bus like 50 cars that, or whatever. it is also really important to show where he is and what he is doing. he is talking to farmers. it is a really important part to show where they are and give some context. by the time he got to do place, he would have an ice cream cone and we are just stopping or we would have to run up and he would already be almost done. manic bus part of the tour. bus tours are great. a lot of ice cream. [laughter] this is just a frozen, rainy bunch of people waiting to go see obama. i grabbed this picture on the way in. the line. little.we jump to act a this is one of those pictures

you have to be close to make. we work a room. you find a place where you think she is going to go and it comes to you sometimes. andle love their candidate it is such a great way to see different people in the country. she was really laughing hard. is the first time i photographed donald trump. this was at the capital at a tea party event before he got the nomination. i was working the front and he went off the back of the stage and i missed the whole get off the back of the stage. so i was like, ok, i am missing the shot. i planted myself behind this audio table, this hard, immovable table and he got pushed right to me and there was press all over. -- like thee

hillary one before, and this one here, just that energy, that interaction with their people. >> was he giving them the pull in handshake? carolyn: totally. and then they got stuck there. then there was like this being and there were both making sound. [laughter] carolyn: and the media is yelling. able tonot have been plant myself because they were clearing a path for him. he just have to kind of sneak ahead and that is how i got that picture. big head, little head at the convention. [laughter] every person who spoke at the convention, i took pictures of big head, little head because there was this big jumbotron behind and there they would be. i worked the buffers, which is

that point between the people and the stage. for both the republican and the democratic national conventions. this is an example of the pictures i took every day. damon: there was one funny little no. there was a thing on the campaign, ap first. ap has always been the wire service that provides the world and thereres and news is a tradition of always having the ap first and ap always has that center spot. questionally the first is from the ap. carolyn: being a wire service photographer is a little different. you could be curious but you still have to cover everybody. them tax for attack. you have to make sure you have the pictures.

we'll havein a while someone in the back saying you can go on the cherry picker and take a chance. it is an interesting kind of grind. [laughter] carolyn: again with a little faces everywhere. she is everywhere. you try really hard to find something different and i really want the baby arms. [laughter] carolyn: that was a delegate with his little baby. hisx-month little baby on -- bjourn thing on the front. this is one of those pictures you have to get. this is why we are here. .he photo started behind this he worked the whole convention to get these balloon drops. you work the center spot, you hold the center spot. you turn your cards into

the runners on and the runners mess up the cards in my cards went to a different agency. us got -- anybody who is a photographer knows that kind of thing. it all worked out fine. go ahs what i think and i when i see that. i will go back to that one. we got a crowd reaction. this is a good picture for you. they hit their mark. this was total stagecraft. i looked at the stage and i saw the black x in tape and i planted myself in front of that tape because i knew he would introduce her and he wrapped his and it was the picture they wanted us to have. this was it. ben: and there is a real

blocking to these events. it is almost like a play. you have to hit your light, hit your mark on the stage. rumor member of the moments were something was a little bit off. the really long kiss during the convention, but we are so accustomed to help choreograph these moments are. carolyn: but you have to know the choreography to work around it too. [applause] ben: we will conclude with raymond's -- with damon's photographs. damon: all right, so i have to talk. [laughter] have my notes i am terrible narrating. i covered a bit of romney's campaign in 2008. you were talking about the rhythms of campaign before and what it is like.

each campaign was completely different. i remember covering romney early on before he had his press plane. you would spend every day booking your flight, getting your car and trying to get ahead to the next destination. that rhythm was completely different to the five event the day when you're on the plane traveling along with the candidate. this picture, i spent a while with romney but did not cover his entire campaign. this was around the time he made comments about having the place full of women. i love the fact that he is turning his back on this tender gesture from this woman and she is caressing his back as he is turned to this crowd of old white men. the way i think about covering campaigns is, you see this same thing over and over and over again and i want each photo to say something beyond the things that are in the frame at that moment.

art of the beauty of covering campaign is that you have this shotition that you get a of seeing things over and over and over again. and the arc of a campaign you can really think about how these photos will all fit together to tell a story or you can work on a specific moment that you think is important about the arc that moment. this was at the convention and this was during a sound check. i had a really long lens and i think i was one of the only people doing a sound check. i love this expression paul ryan had on his face, like a deer in headlights. with all of these shadowy figures conspiring behind him. they are pulling the strings. [laughter] damon: the geithner has a reservoir dogs -- it kind of has a reservoir dogs feel.

and the piercing lights. probably one of my favorite photos from obama's first campaign in 2008. this was in texas. their faces on all of these children, i feel like you can feel this energy and this complete joy at getting to see the first african-american presidential candidate coming through their town. att they get to look somebody that looks like them running for the nation's highest office. the excitement was palpable. i remember watching this scene and multiple layers of shadows and figures in all of these gestures in the hands on the fence. without seeing a smile, and i or a tear, you knew exactly how these kids felt. as a staffer on the campaign you lived for these moments. >> every difficult dam at

campaign you are re-energized by seeing what really mattered. choicesnd these are all that you have to make. to make this picture, i have to miss the candidate actually walking into the arena. you make a choice because you see this scene unfolding to the left and you ask, is this the picture that tells the story of the day or of the campaign? do i give up the bread and butter thing of the candidate himself and you have to make those choices and calculations. this was in the closing days of the 2008 campaign. he made a campaign stop at a university in pennsylvania. this ended up being an iconic photo from his campaign. it was an event that i almost did not make it to. my colleague and i were both covering the campaign at that point and doug was doing behind

the scenes and i was in the front. theot on the second bus in daily news reporter had to go to the bathroom before we left. so the whole motorcade left without us and we were just sitting there. we had to fight through traffic and we just made it right as he was taking the stage as it was starting to pour down rain. instead of cutting his speech short, this is one of the longest events that i can remember. he was completely energized. this photo, beyond just looking itrixy and cool comic highlighted the youth, the vigor, the excitement in his campaign. mccain was also speaking in pennsylvania that day and he canceled his event because of the weather. this was a perfect contrast to what those two campaigns represented.

this was after he was elected on the was. tour. -- on the whistle. p tour. we would see a lot of people crying, people overcome with joy and emotion. it took me looking back on that time and having covered other campaigns to really understand what a powerful moment that was for a lot of people. , io looking at this picture think about the mood of the country at that time and how diverse is events were, these rallies were. i had never really seen people being so simple, sharing their space together, working towards this common goal. it was really uplifting. was really a fantastic time and it was the first time i covered a campaign feeling so incredibly lucky to have been part of that.

this was from covering his second campaign in 2012 as president. the tone of the campaign was naturally different than the first. the first campaign was the hope and promise of a new, young candidate coming into government , or into the highest office for the first time. the second time around was defending a whole administration's worth of policies and no longer being the outsider claiming to be able to make change. he had to be able to defend his first four years in office. thes just taken by trappings of the presidency and the scale of it. covers the white house knows how much this plane features into coverage.

it is an impressive -- it is a very different challenge. is have to deliver -- >> it a different challenge. you are defending something that secretary ofhe agriculture did two years ago. in poetryou campaign and cover in prose and you have to incorporate poetry into the pros on these campaigns. there was certainly a different feeling to the second one. damon: this was also from the 2012 campaign. this was one of my favorite pictures from the campaign. i spent the entire event, i do not remember where i was that most of the photographers -- we spend a lot of time in the front photographing him, but you could go all the way back to the end of the pen where the photographers were. from this one angle you could see the pot of flowers reflected .n his teleprompter

he sees the words of his teleprompter, but from where i was standing i could see this bouquet of flowers. it was this really overcast day, this really gloomy day and it just spoke to the challenge of an incumbent running for office. he has lived through the wererms of 2010 republicans took both houses and basically stonewalled every single policy that he attempted to put forth. he had a hard time selling his affordable care act to the public. in that second campaign, trying to put a rosy glow on four years of governance when things were not that easy. i always loved how this picture sort of captured that. >> we should have just run the ad.ers as it

contrast -- i like this picture because of how crappy it looks. [laughter] damon: of how little effort was put into it. it was really poorly run. really disorganized. really difficult to cover because a lot of people who ran a campaign did not know what they were doing. i felt like this captured that. and he did tons of these hanger .allies he really liked to show off the plane. i think it was a powerful image for him. he played the theme music for air force one on loop as the plane approached for like 20 minutes.

basically, he would fly in, hop off his plane, give the speech, hop on the plane and take off. i like the idea that -- there were a lot of times he would not even shake people's hands. i love this idea of swooping in, doing your thing and leaving and leaving everybody else to pick up the garbage. talked about covering obama, clinton, mccain, romney, there is interaction with the team, what is happening with trump? are you on that plane? of timeor a good bit there was no press plane with trump. you had to pick and choose your battles and try to get through as many events as possible. i think this was in iowa. iowa is a pretty big state. he covered it like a guy who had a plane. he would go from one end of the state to the other. i think i drove 2000 miles in the course of two or three days.

you have to pick and choose and you have to work each event as best you could to get the most out of each event because you knew that was the only time you would see him that day. this is at the same event that carolyn's picture was. i don't know if you remember but i was all over your back shooting. i said, i am so sorry. she had the best spot. there is usually two square feet that is the place everybody wants to be. we all try to share that. damon: that was not my position. i think you shot that position with all of the different candidates. i only shot that on the final night when he gave that speech. i basically worked this photo. over 1000 images of this exact scene over and over and over trying to get the technical stuff right because

you need to shoot at a certain shutter speed to get rid of the weight it cycles through. -- the way it cycles through. the screen in the back has a slight delay from what is actually being shown. there is a millisecond delay. just rightshoot it you can capture the moment where the expression on the scene is different than the expression in real life. what i thought about was, for the very first time the new york times said the president lied. it was kind of a big deal. i thought about, how do you take a photograph that says this person is capable of lying or lied? how do you showed to the city in a photograph? this is one of the ways we try duplicity inry --

a photograph? this is one of the ways we try to tell a story. he made his pitch to rural working-class white america. i think this is oklahoma, idol have my notes. a lot of times i would try to photograph him without showing the person himself. this is another time that i was telling of his ability to .ntruths, to be duplicitous you have two shadows that are hollow and thin. i feel like i tried my very best to get beyond the restrictions that the campaign in posed on -- us.sed on there were the most restrictive campaign i have covered. they cap your angle of view really narrow. you had to work hard to tell a story. coordinating with

the reporter at the event to get a sense of the story they are doing? are you working with the photo editor? how to set process work? are out covering day today. i know with the stories are and i am following the news and i am thinking of the big picture and the long arc of the story, trying to find ways to make a complete body of work over the course of the 16 month i covered the campaign. i think this was during his first big foreign policy speech. like i was saying before, just trying to use different tools at your disposal to make interesting photographs to tell a story. i think it was at this speech that he was really ramping up .he anti-muslim rhetoric

ofs is through the eyepiece the person who is shooting the live feed. there are very few events for it works out this way because it was a really small venue so the camera is really close to him. his image is quite large in the viewfinder and he is out of focus in the background. the beauty of covering a campaign, the repetition so you can try things over and over and eventually you get it to work out. contrasting with the crowds at the obama rallies too. it was just interesting to look of faces withsea furry little diversity. i think this is in florida. part of what we do is capture a sense of place and the people who show up to these events.

i just like the light and the beautiful balance between the existing light and the setting sun. this is this young man named jaden rams and the colorado junction. towards the end of the campaign more andyself taking more photographs of children at these rallies. i had a four-year-old son at the time. i was really confused and pretty conflicted about what these children were being exposed to at these rallies and the kind of vitriol and hate they were expressing at a very young age and being encouraged -- there is a photograph a frame or two after this -- that is his father on the right, he leans over and

gives him a kiss on the head and he is chanting "walker up, lock up, walk- "lock her lock her up." it is one of the most poignant photos from that campaign. everybody sees the armpit, i do not see the armpit. this is in sacramento. in thehis guy dressed flag and he is in front of a flag. this very bright populist, nationalistic message is blinding him. that is how i read this photo. this is in iowa before the caucuses.

so many people photograph guys house.this i guess he was a trump supporter. i know it got vandalized. people through paint acted. -- paint at it. i went one evening to make a photograph and stayed through the evening as the sun set. and i love this sort of whiff of pink clouds kind of emanating from his forehead. [laughter] damon: and just trying to tell the story, i think a majority of white women ended up voting for trump despite the hollywood access tape. i just love this woman and her

defiance, how she is standing up and she is dressed in her sunday finest, and she is not going to take any crap from anybody. >> and it feels like if you took that, if you can across her on the street today, you could take that same picture. [laughter] damon: this is in sacramento. i'm surprised they let him into the rally. [laughter] he is actually not protesting. think downng, i below he has another sign on his chest and on his back, i think he is making fun of hillary or something. but i sort of felt like, the joke is on you because you are wearing the dunce cap. [laughter] and donald trump, at some point, uttered words i thought i would never hear any candidate they. he said, "i love uneducated

voters." i think he's sort of preyed on that. >> the hair. damon: we talk about access. in contrast with the obama photo , where you get to see him disembarking from the plane, plane, all of the pomp that goes along with that, and sometimes all we would get with a little glimpse of him for a millisecond, through a window. also speaking about the opacity of his campaign, the refusal to release his tax records, flying on a private jet, all of those things rolled into one in this picture. [laughter] yes, he is standing in front of an american flag. you can barely see it, but this

is one of these things, i'm telling myself -- the campaign is so restrictive and they give you this little pen and the want you to stand on the riser and shoot him in front of the american flag, this giant american flag. i sort of feel like if you are going to pen me in that much, you are going to force me to be creative. so i got on the riser and waded in near the crowd and started shooting, and people put their hands up, sometimes they put their cell phones up to take pictures. and one person put their phone up so it looked a little dark. it is really just his hair and his finger. a certain emptiness to his message. there was not a lot of policy in his speeches. sort of preying on people's emotions and getting those few things that define him. his way of speaking, and that iconic hair. >> i think one lesson learned for campaign staff is never put

photojournalists in a pen. because they are going to get really creative and we are not going to get rewarded in any way. [laughter] damon: i always sort of thought of the stalin-era marble statue with this photo. [laughter] i don't know what happened to his left arm. he does have a hand there, i just don't know where it is. [laughter] but i could see this as a statue in washington dc during the military parade. with his thumbs up. [laughter] damon: i think this is the closing days toward the end of the campaign. looking for ways to show the tone of the campaign, and different ways to show the candidate without showing the candidate. and so this is from election night.

this is about 3:00 in the morning after one of the most brutal knights of my journalistic career. it was just long and difficult. end, broken glass was all over the place, people were in the created -- were steppeded, and a woman on glass and cut her foot and bled all over his make america great signs. this is the only photo i was really proud of that night, that i felt really told the story, i felt 16 months -- i spent 16 months covering his campaign and had a good sense of the mood of the country at the moment and mightlecting donald trump mean moving forward. and i thought this was a photo that told the story. [applause]

>> thank you for coming. ais brings us to the q and portion. we have time for a couple of questions. razor hand. if the question is selected we will come to you. speak clearly into the microphone. we are recording this. i will go with the first and i saw. thank you all. brilliant, brilliant photographs. does anyone ever use fillmore is ?verything digital

becovering campaigns has to digital. basically there are no deadlines anymore. there is a 24-hour news cycle and you have to get your stuff in by 6:00 by print deadlines before but now you have to get in constantly.

>> given your long days, you are filling up cards with many, many images. who reviews them, and if so, who reviews them? how do you manage all that extra stuff in your day? >> we manage those images. like carolyn just said, we will be escorted and arrive at a campaign event. they will bound us out of the bus. it is usually behind an arena or a church, or someplace. they bound us out and we run in. we might have a second to throw down our computer at a table. and the reporters are coming in with us, and the television is -- and the television folks, and we are getting set up as fast as we possibly can. i keep my laptop, most of us keep our laptops with us. then the candidate comes out and we will make pictures, depending what happens the first four or

five minutes. and you'll see our heads drop to the ground. then we pull out our laptops and we're immediately filing and immediately writing captions as frantically as possible. a lot of us carry portable wi-fi hotspots. and some of us will carry two or three of those because you do not know where you are, which company has the best signal. sometimes it is at&t, sometimes it is verizon. so you are working as fast as you can, and you will try to transmit for five pictures as fast as possible, and a variety of pictures. medium, tight, something interesting, the arrival handshake. then you throw it back to the laptop in your shooting again. shoot, shoot, shoot. then the event is over and may be the candidate works the rep -- work the rope line, maybe they won't, and then you're back on the bus, and the clock is really taking. tithe clock is really cking.

you have the distance from the bus until you are 3500 feet in the airplane, because that is where the wi-fi drops off, the cell phone signal. then you jump on the bus and jump and go as fast as you can. you are editing. your editing thousands of pictures sometimes. as i have gotten older i try to be more discriminating and not shoot thousands of pictures anymore. maybe hundreds. and you are going like mad, then you bound off the bus and you bound on to the airplane and you are filing pictures. you can watch it as the plane climbs into the air, but you watch your cell phone signal go doop.doop, carolyn: and you are holding your phone against the window, trying to get that last wi-fi signal. chip: it goes in reverse, also. so as you are descending to the next event you watch the cell phone go up, up. and you are filing again and again and again. and every second on those mad -- days, in between events, you are filing part of the daily routine

is writing out your captions because you know will you be in five cities that you pre-write all those captions. and when it comes time to edit, it saves a few seconds and those seconds really make a big difference. >> this will be our final question of the evening. i will get one from the back. >> can any of you think of a moments when you are surprised by the respect or caring that a candidate may have shown a voter, or conversely, disrespect or contempt that may have slipped out? >> that is a good question. every candidate is different. carolyn: yes. you strive to do, at least a lot of time how they interact with , people. and people come to them with their emotions on their sleeve.

if they feel they are being heard by someone of such importance to our country, they will cry. they will get a hug. people would see john mccain and weep, just at the sight of him. people told hillary clinton their life story. people would hold onto donald trump and not let go. so there is those moments of connection and energy that you see all the time. especially people waiting since 4:00 in the morning for a 7:00 p.m. event. they are exhausted and everybody's emotions are high. and some of these events, it can be 100 degrees in the high school gym and no one has had water and everyone is losing

their mind, so a lot can happen. >> it is interesting to contrast candidates too -- i think of -- observing the obama campaign, i felt he was the same person in real life when the camera was not on him as he was when he was greeting people and the camera was watching and. and the camera was watching, and -- andthe camera was watching, i felt he really enjoyed interacting with people and getting to meet them and shake their hands. one of the first candidates i covered was john edwards. i could contrast that feeling. he was really having to work hard to interact with people, and he really did not like it. it was uncomfortable for him and he did not like having to shake people's hands and look them in the eye. it is interesting to see what makes them tick. >> you can join me one final time in thanking our panel for coming out today. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its captio

>> democrats meet wednesday for a closed-door vote for speaker of the house and other leadership positions. nancy pelosi is expected to win the vote which requires a simple majority in the contest. c-span will have live coverage of the event. she was asked if she had enough votes to become the next speaker. what do you think about the freshman numbers? what can you offer them? back a primary challenge? >> i have always -- i always have. it did not matter to me. i just said win. >> 17