October 17th, 2007.  It was a sunny day in Washington DC as hundreds gathered on the south lawn of the US Capitol hoping to get a glimpse of Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, better known to the world as the 14th Dalai Lama.

They began arriving early in the day, staking out positions on the lawn as if it were some festival concert.  Some in traditional Buddhist robes, some carrying handmade signs urging support for a free Tibet; they crowded along the capitol steps and watched a jumbotron feed of the Congressional Gold Medal ceremony taking place inside the Capitol Rotunda.

I did not watch the jumbotron because I was inside photographing the ceremony.  Of the hundred plus pictures I took that day, one stood out immediately:

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This was my second time attending a Congressional Gold Medal ceremony, so I was already experienced in the pageantry and pomp that surrounds these events.  The US Army Chorus sings and the rotunda comes alive with music, attendees file in slowly, taking snapshots while finding empty seats.  After all the ticket-holders find chairs, the congressional staffers are allowed to fill the remaining standing-only areas of the rotunda.

The photo corps set up shop on a press riser pointing an array of white-clad canon zooms with the odd Nikon photographer sticking out like a sore black thumb.  One step lower, the video guys have tripods set up supporting DVCPRO, XDCam and random prosumer HDV cameras.  They fiercely guard their positions as if they were waiting in line for a Black Friday sale.

Inevitably, there is always an argument between the late-arriving radio folk and the video guys over the multbox.  From my position next to the tangle of XLR cables, I watched as someone’s feed was “accidentally” unplugged in favor of one of the radio people’s portable recorder.  Quiet arguments usually ensue and the unspoken promise of ass kicking prevents further transgressions between the two parties.  As I was there in an “official” unofficial capacity, I did not have approval to take a place on the press riser, so I did my best to stand taller then the crowd in front of me and grab what shots I could.

An assortment of bipartisan congressmen and senators gradually filled out the dais and John Boehner obsessively wiped his nose with a hankerchief.  Finally, the President and the honoree were announced and the room stood to receive them.

Regardless of how you feel about any particular President, their presence in a room is a commanding spectacle.  When you see them on television and in print, they become a caricature of themselves, open to a form of vilification and demonization that is far greater then any physical form could possibly live up to.  Such it was with Bush, subject to near universal disdain and mockery for his policies, mannerisms and abundant gaffs, the expectation is to be met with a man that can personify that caricature.  However, you quickly see that the person that walks into the room is much less then that image you’ve been shown, and as a result, seems far more complicated as a human being.

The Dalai Lama and the President sat side by side, talking quietly, laughing in moments that were charming and warm.  They seemed as if they were old friends, sharing an ease in each others company that was both genuine and surprising.  To watch a man so vilified enjoying the company of a man believed to be a living god contrasted how the public opinions of a man can be so out of touch with the physical representation of that man.

The Dalai Lama’s eyes wandered about the room, studying the audience, the statues, the intricate frescos on the ceiling and something caught his eye.  The President and the Dalai Lama spent a few moments examining the ceiling before the President lost interest and retreated to his own thoughts.  I was trying to capture the moment of them both looking up at the ceiling, but I snapped the frame half a second late and would up with the image above.  In many ways, it is superior to the shot I was attempting to get.

Aesthetically, this shot is very pleasing to me.  The subjects are centered at the bottom of the frame and the leading headroom complements the Dalai Lama’s gaze.  As far as the contents and composition, the end result is very successful.

Technically, this shot is a complete disaster.  My employer provides me with a Nikon D200 DSLR for my photographic needs.  My personal camera is a Canon, but I grew up shooting on a Nikon FE 35mm so I came to this camera with a positive opinion based on brand-identity alone.  After spending a significant amount of time with it, I find the D200′s controls to be sub-par and its imaging performance is atrocious both in the quality of its JPEG compression and inherent sensor noise.

Paired with this camera is the only lens they’ve invested in, the Nikkor 18-200 f/3.5-5.6 VR zoom.  Without reservation, I’d say that this lens is the worst piece of glass I’ve ever shot through.  It’s incredibly slow, corner sharpness is stunningly poor, and the resolution is abysmal anywhere below f/8.  Since we own two copies of this lens (don’t ask why), I did a side-by-side comparison to see if we simply had a bad example.  In my informal testing, I found that both lenses suffered near identical distortion in the image corners from wide angle to mid-zoom.

For events in the capitol rotunda, they set up two ARRI HMI Pars quite some distance back from the dais.  I’ve never bothered to check the exact lamp, but they appeared to be 1200w heads from what I recall.  Even with the extra lighting, I was barely able to get anything usable on full zoom wide open unless I opened up past 1200 ISO.  The shot above is at f/5.6, shutter speed of 200 and ISO of 1250.   The high ISO, poor optics and requirement that I shoot only in JPG results in a shot that has gigantic toothy noise and would only be printable on a similar textured matte paper.

Excepting the poor technical quality of the image, it is easily one of my favorites due to the authenticity of the moment it captured as well as my own personal memories of being at the ceremony.  The positioning of the two subjects caused many on flickr to comment with conclusions drawn from their specific political and philosophical appraisals of both men.  While those types of conclusions are occasionally funny and intellectually interesting, the overall analysis of the moment was almost entirely vapid and caustic with no real appreciation of the reason for the event.

The first shot in this three-part analysis was an example of a picture that was discovered in photoshop and twisted into its final form through brute force pixel manipulation.  The second shot is an example of shooting one specific subjects until the winning image presented itself.  For me, this shot is an example of shooting the right frame at the right time, and is one of the more pleasing shots I’ve taken.  All together, these three shots tell me that I don’t have a particular strength developed as of yet.  Beyond my preclusion to snap endless party candids with my Zenitar Fisheye, I have not developed a photographic style that translates to a specific mode of photography.  I can only assume that will come with age and experience if I continue to push myself to shoot as often as possible.

As far as this specific photo, I suppose it has taught me that the audience and the creator can both enjoy the same image with vastly different inferences about the contents of the image.  Without shooting a ton of frames, a moment like this would have been missed, so in the future I hope that I might have the confidence to keep shooting even when I don’t see the picture in front of me.

Letting go of that 36-frame mentality is difficult.