Hillary Clinton

So Hillary Clinton came to town today. It was a pretty crazy set of events. We were not sure if we were going to get press passes until late last night, and we had to get their nearly 3 and a half hours before Senator Clinton would get there. So I get there a little before 11AM, and parking is already a mess (she doesn't come on till 1:30Pm). Luckily I have a Faculty/Staff parking pass and could park in the lower section for the closest parking structure just behind Cox Arena. When I arrive, they are not letting anyone in and are not giving out credentials again for another 30 minutes to an hour because the Secret Service is doing a security sweep for bombs and other sorts of "goodies." Finally we are able to check-in and enter Cox Arena around 12:15PM. I can tell that there is going to be very little space to move around with all the television cameras and reporters. The press row is very narrow, but it is pretty nice because it wraps around in an "L" shape so you have a number of different angles to shot from. 

After awhile setting up my gear and picking out a spot (that would later be stolen by the evil TV reporters), I decided to go see how many people were in line. Little did I know that the line would wrap around most of the campus. I could not believe that it wrapped all the way down Centennial Walkway, in front of Heppner Hall, and back down Centennial Walkway to Adams Humanities.

Finally, after standing in one spot on a riser for nearly two hours, Senator Hillary Clinton showed up around 2:30PM, an hour later than scheduled. I really like how the traveling press (the press that travels in the chartered busses, usually the AP, Getty, Reuters, etc) barged in and got to go in front of the rest of us. Whatever, I understand though, I cannot even image on the campaign trail nonstop. Kudos to them for being able to handle it.

Hillary has some very "interesting" facial expressions. This one here is after being greeted by San Diego State's President Stephen L. Weber and California Senator Christine Kehoe.

The nice press advisor allowed us to get up close for a few seconds in order to get the shots we wanted. I shot this from about 20 feet away with the 300 2.8. The light was decent on the stand, and there was a big drop off on the crowd so the background is pretty nice in this image.

Towards the end of Clinton's speech, a few expressed their displeasure with the Senators ideas, and help up a banner that I couldn't really understand. This gentlemen on the right was a Hillary supporter sitting next to these guys. He did not take too kindly to these guy's idea of a joke and after some pushing and shoving, the supporter prevailed and ripped the sign out of the protesters hand. They were then arrested...it was humorous though!

All in all my back and feet hurt from standing for so long, but there were plenty of great images to be had. It was a great experience. I'll let it be known, I am not the biggest fan of Hillary, but she was a pretty powerful speaker.