Looking Back on the Inauguration: When a Small Camera Made a Big Difference
Scenes from two Presidential Inaugurations photographed for TIME Magazine.
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The first time I photographed Inauguration was for TIME magazine in 2017. I was overwhelmed to witness such a historic event in such a strange year. I was also incredibly cold. My POV was documenting the incoming President as he made his way up the Capitol back stairs, while the soon-to-be former President was whisked away on Air Force One. The wind chill on that senselessly early morning was a balmy 3 degrees. The entrance of the President wasn't expected until 10 a.m., but the call-time for the press photographers was inexplicably (and rather callously) set at 6 a.m. For four very long hours, I regretted everything — not dressing warmer, taking this assignment, becoming a photographer. Then Trump and Obama descended the stairs and despair was briefly replaced with adrenalin. The whole shoot took about five minutes. After, I swore to myself never to photograph any Inauguration ever again.
Fast-forward to December, 2020. I get a call from TIME to photograph another Inauguration. Remembering the bitter cold, the unforgiving morning hours, the debilitating pain in my shoulders after carrying around a 400 telephoto lens, I thought, "no way" as I heard myself saying, "Yes, I would love to."
This time, however, I was going to make some adjustments.
Equipped with hindsight and a mild case of PTSD, I invested in thermal underwear (life-changing) and ugly, super-warm photographers' gloves. By asking the right people the right questions, I found out that the 6 a.m. call time is technically 6 to 8:30, so I got there at a very cozy 8:15 in the morning. And, most importantly, I decided to forego the back-breaking telephoto. Instead, I came armed with a tiny but vicious Sony that was concealing a miraculous 200x zoom inside its miniature frame. With two relatively small cameras (the other being a mirrorless Nikon Z6) I was able to run around on the Inauguration Day and photograph scenes that I was unable to pull off while being burdened by the telephoto beast of a lens.
I often say that equipment doesn't matter. Still, I was slightly embarrassed when, surrounded by cameras mounted on tripods to support the weight of zoom lenses so big they probably needed their own security clearance, I took the adorable Sony out of my pocket. Of course, there are obvious technical tradeoffs — the level of detail, color accuracy, aperture capabilities — if comparing an image taken by an expensive telephoto lens vs a miniature consumer camera. But if used right and printed on a double page of the magazine, it looks just as good.
Washington, D.C. on Inauguration week was a bizarre, dystopian sight. Because of the January 6th insurrection, everything around the White House and the Capitol was blocked off in every direction and required several levels of clearance. Troops in full riot gear outnumbered the somewhat spooked but avidly curious pedestrians. For the four days I was there, I photographed what looked like a city under siege.
One of the photos I took, an image of hundreds of soldiers resting on the lawn of the Capitol, reminded me of Jeff Wall's Dead Troops Talk. The photo shows a Red Army Patrol after an ambush in Afghanistan in 1986. In the elaborately staged, magical-realist tableau, dead soldiers are coming back to life while experiencing different emotions, from disbelief to acceptance to grotesque humor. The photograph shook me to the core when I saw it for the first time, and witnessing an eerily similar scene was a strange callback on a most strange afternoon.
My favorite image from the week was an outtake that never got published — a photo of the Bidens holding hands as they begin their ceremonious ascent up the stairs. It's a quiet, almost intimate moment in an event saturated with pomp and circumstance.
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You've captured it well. I've done two - 1989 & 2009. Frozen time (and extremities) and adrenaline (terror). And yes, the Bidens walking up the stairs - more poignant now than then.
Great to find a fellow Ukrainian on Substack, I do photography as well, but I mostly write. I also started a section on Ukrainian culture!