Charles Ommanney covering Obama in New Hampshire 1/6/2008

Award-winning Newsweek photojournalist Ommanney talked with Holly Fine about covering the White House.

The winner of this year’s Best Photo award from the White House News Photographers’ Association, Newsweek’s Charles Ommanney, talked with WHCInsider about covering President Obama during his public and private moments from the campaign to the Oval Office. Ommanney told WHCI contributor Holly Fine that while candidate Obama had occasionally denied him access, team Obama understands something the Bush staff did not: the power of images.

Holly Fine Some people say your photographs got Barack Obama elected.  How do you react to that?
Charles Ommanney Well my God that’s so funny! In a way, I suppose I could say that is an incredible compliment.  At the same time, it’s a very gray area in journalism. When you work very close to these people, you find yourself being in a bubble and you forget about the outside world.  You can wake up one day and you realize or question whether you are being objective, because it is hard to not like someone like Barack Obama.  In fact, it was actually hard once I got on the inside of the Bush campaign in 2000, it was hard not to like him. It’s kind of a gray area that we all go through, you ask anyone who spends time traveling with a presidential candidate.

HF Can you remember the exact moment when you said to yourself, I am photographing the face of the next president?
CO I think around Iowa, when the Iowa caucus was going on. The size of the crowd and again it all comes back to this sort of bubble that you live in.  We were hearing on the road that John McCain was getting 2,000 people, if he was lucky, in an audience and then you were going to gymnasiums in Des Moines and Cedar Rapids and having 20,000 people turn up and you start realizing that this is some kind of phenomenon going on here. You knew you were kind of living some sort of history.

HF How did he change in the campaign through your camera?
CO The candidate to a degree is shielded quite a lot by the force of people underneath him, working for him, doing everything.  I am not sure Barack Obama really changed during the campaign, if at all.  I think it would be extremely unusual if these huge crowds of adoring fans didn’t affect his ego.  But really, Barack Obama didn’t change that much.  The people that changed were the people around him. Read more…

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D.C. Comedy Pro Richard Siegel Reviewed Sykes Performance for WHCInsider

What is the hardest job in the country? It’s to follow President Obama.  Wanda Sykes, grabbed the microphone, commanded the stage; she was bold, not over the top, brash  not X-rated, cool, calm, collected and yes, very funny. She stunned the audience numerous times, as people would look around, dressed in their black tie attire, wondering if it was okay to laugh.  No subject was out of bounds.  Wanda knew how far to go, knew her boundaries, attacked every target, but did not get too racy nor leave any subject alone.   Sykes talked about Obama’s nipples when he appears without a shirt, and of course, discussed the “legacy” of Bush, the guest who stayed in your house and got out of town before you noticed that he broke everything.
 
As I watched Wanda confidently address the country and the journalists, I felt like a proud parent. I have watched Wanda grow from an open mike comedienne and comedy contestant in the 80s to what she is today, a major force in comedy.  Her style has changed, as in the early days her sarcasm was one of her most powerful weapons. Tonight, it was her charm, confidence and charisma that stood out.

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