Today the Democratic National Convention officially began. The media focus– including more than a few of our very own reporters’ and editors’ attentions– has been firmly placed on the perception of dissension within the Democratic Party. I sat next to a reporter for the Los Angeles Times through the afternoon and early evening production cycle. He called a number key personnel in the Clinton and Obama campaigns looking for quotes about this perception of dissension. It was fascinating to listen in as he asked his questions, listened to their answers, and then reworked his approach with new information. The level of activity on site has undergone a significant increase each of the last few days. Sound levels are up. Activity levels are up. Things are in motion. The volume of noise, in particular, could approach levels that made telephone conversations difficult. And when your editor is counting on you to get the quote and get it right, there’s a particular amount of stress that permeates the air.

I fully expect Hillary Clinton to spike this discussion of dissension when she takes the stage tomorrow night. We’ll see.

Tonight the big speeches were Ted Kennedy and Michelle Obama. I am not going to go over the contents of the speeches or their effects on the site other than to comment that I did get the opportunity to borrow an editorial press credential long enough to get into the hall and watch Michelle Obama speak. The hall was filled beyond capacity for Michelle Obama’s speech. I made my way up into the writing press stands. I thought I might be able to kneel behind the journalists in our set of seats and watch from there. The press stands– like the rest of the hall– were jammed with other onlookers, and once I got up there, I could not move anywhere else. So I took it in like many others did: standing room only. I chose to bring two lenses with me on this trip. My 50mm prime and the 24-70mm zoom lens that Whirl bought for my birthday. That is my longest lens, and the fact of the matter is, that it is just far too short for where I was standing to get a good shot of the speaker. I really required a 400mm lens or longer. So I tried to design my shots to put Michelle Obama inside the greater context of the entirety of the crowd and the hall. A wide shot to take in the scope.

Before Ted Kennedy took the stage, Milbert Brown of the Chicago Tribune asked if I had a photo stand credential. If I did, he was going to invite me to come with him and serve as his backup shooter. I was flattered by the offer. Unfortunately, photo stand credentials are gold and there were none available for me to “borrow”– not for that speech, anyway. I did get a picture of Milbert in the workspace as he contemplated what equipment he wanted to bring to the shoot. I’m happy about that portrait.

I walked through the hall about an hour before the convention opened and felt this quiet air of anticipation. Small clusters of activity would bubble and burst in various areas of the floor. The room was mostly empty. The contrast between this hour before the dawn and the breaking waves of emotion during the night speeches was intense, visceral.

I am glad I could be there.

Tomorrow morning, I leave Denver and the temporary news bureau I have helped to construct. I fly on to St. Paul, Minnesota to begin anew, this time for the Republican National Convention. I wish I could stay. The logistics of the project force me to move on to the next phase, but I know I will retain the memories and contacts of these few days for years to come.

The journalists have arrived. We are now a news room. Production started in earnest. The rest of the technology team came in today, and all our planning has come together. To celebrate, I slept in late. I arrived on-site around 10:00 AM, this morning, still well ahead of the bulk of journalists, photographers, columnists, editors and bloggers we are supporting.

Most of the day consisted of bringing the operational staff up to speed on what we have built, putting in some extra monitoring, and double-checking everything to make sure it was working as expected. After tomorrow, I am headed off to St. Paul to begin setup all over again for the Republican National Convention. So I want to make sure that I leave things in good hands.

The entire convention technology team went out to lunch today, passing a demonstration march as we did so. I have been interested in the demonstrations and protests that have peppered the setup week before the convention. The most visible protesters have been anti-abortionists. They have brought out loudspeakers and camped on strategic corners and rented a fleet of trucks. The trucks carry large banners with graphics of their message and have circled the convention site for several days. This sort of presence I expected. The demonstration march was from the other side of the political fence: the far left. They were perhaps a thousand people, with their primary message one of demilitarization across the globe with particular attention to Iran and Iraq. While we ate lunch, the march moved down Auraria Parkway and camped out in front of the single pedestrian security checkpoint into the convention site. This had the delightful effect of shutting down the security checkpoint entirely. No one in; no one out.

So when we finished lunch, we climbed right back into an 90-minute queue to get back to work. This time the sun was up and I finally got sunburned. But that’s alright. I get sunburned pretty much every day I step outside. So that’s not really news.

It is with quiet anticipation that I got a chance to actually meet some of our editorial staff. I talked White Sox baseball with John Kass from the Chicago Tribune. Los Angeles Times photo editor, Jay Clendenin, showed me some some post-processing techniques. And I stopped by the Tribune Broadcasting suite to observe the production of some live shots for WGN-TV, WPIX and several news shows affiliated with our Washington DC bureau.

It was interesting to me to compare the differences in approaches between publishing and broadcasting. I looked on as Mark Suppelsa and Allison Payne first went over the rundown of their pieces and then practiced their ad libs. Marvin Scott from WPIX really wanted to get his cameraman to push in on the seats of the New York delegations. The logistics of the space was making that request difficult– if not impossible– to adequately fulfill. Grant Rampy played the chameleon as he went over the headline speeches at the convention. He did this almost thirty times, at least once for each of our broadcast stations. I had to admire his discipline as he hit the same notes and emphasis time and time again.

And at the end of the day I got an assignment. My colleague, Jim Robinson, who has been the primary overseer for technology for the conventions knew I had headed into the bowl with my camera to just look around and play tourist. He got a call from the Los Angeles Times desk looking for some explanation on the layout of the floor. They were putting together a diagram of the space for tomorrow’s paper and wanted a bit more context. Jim called me with the request and I took some shots. I went on assignment. — Granted, not a very sexy assignment, and at the end of the day, they did not need the shots at all. Still, it was kind of cool to be asked.

And I suppose that sums up a lot of what I’ve been going through this past week. Odd requests, some of which get fulfilled, some get called off, some are successes, some are failures. But at the end of the day, it was cool just to be asked.

Michelle Obama is the headline speaker tomorrow, opening night. Stay tuned!

Today was not quite a setup day and it was not quite an full operations day. The convention officially begins on Monday, but the setup part is mostly over. Yesterday was shortened due to the impending security sweep so we hurried to get everything done before 5:00 PM that we possibly could. We’d been told that the site would be open again at noon today. So I relaxed and took a lazy approach to the morning. We headed over to the site a little after noon to see how things stood after the sweep. Things stood in line. A long line. Everyone– DNC personnel, media personnel, vendors, contractors– was funneled through a single checkpoint, and security was unprepared for the volume of people and equipment that needed to move through. So we encountered delays. It took a little longer than an hour for me to get through the security checkpoint. Once inside, the activity level continued to rise.

I spent most of the afternoon working with the photographers that arrived on site. Our one outstanding issue from yesterday was power on the central camera platform, so that was a concern to not just our photographers but all the photographers who had positions there. The rest was primarily familiarizing them with what we had set up and how they could expect it to work: in our workspace, in the digital darkroom, on the photo platform. I took Tom Ferrara of Newsday on a tour of the photography facilities in the bowl. Talked at some length with Milbert Brown of the Chicago Tribune about possible ways to mount cameras on the central photo platform.

And after all of that I turned into a paparazzi, myself, as CNN started doing live shots from the convention floor. I got a couple photographs of Gloria Borger, Wolf Blitzer, and Anderson Cooper setting up for their evening show. The extent of CNN’s presence at this convention is impressive. I’ve already talked about their takeover of Brooklyn’s and conversion to the CNN Grill. Yesterday they were doing shots from the roof, patio and interior of that building, from their two suites in the bowl, and from the convention floor. While the breadth of their coverage is impressive, I wonder about the depth of the coverage. This may be my prejudice toward print journalism and the written word. I do wonder if universal access– meaning cameras everywhere– adds significantly to the quality of the news being reported.

The night ended with a party for the media at Elitch Gardens. The Democratic National Party has bought out Elitch’s for two weeks: the week preceding and the week of the convention. We got a chance to go inside. Most of the rides were running. They had food and drink catered. One of the treats my parents gave me growing up was to take us to Elitch Gardens at the end of the summer. It has been a long time since I have been back. A lot has changed, including the location, but much of it remains the same. I wandered around the grounds thinking I was twelve-years old again.

Tomorrow will be a big day as almost all of our editorial staff arrives and looks to get set up.

It’s all happening. It’s all happening!

Today was our last major day of setup and the energy of the approaching convention was palpable. The Democratic National Convention Committee promised the people of Denver an opportunity to see the convention site. They had vowed to make this convention the most transparent, open and approachable convention ever. So they held an Open House today. This was the moment for the Big Reveal of the speaker’s platform and stage design to the public. So those pictures I took of construction and setup back on Monday are now fair game, as the secret is out. Thousands of people queued up outside the Pepsi Center to get a look at the bowl and to find out how national party conventions fit into the American political system.

I worked.

We fulfilled the final technology setup obligations today. The last piece being securing positions on the central camera platform for our still photographers and fitting them with adequate network connectivity. In working on this element, I got the chance to sit in the middle of the bowl and take it all in. — Fortunately, some previous connectivity problems had required me to bring my backpack into the bowl to troubleshoot what was going on. Which meant I had my camera with me as well. So when we proved everything was working correctly, I was able to take out the camera and pretend to be a big time photojournalist.

And just to demonstrate how much I am not a big time photojournalist, I took a couple pictures of the camera rigs of real big time photojournalists while I eavesdropped on the conversations the real journalists were having amongst themselves– and with their editors– regarding platform position allocations, shooting strategies and editorial obligations.

Tonight is the primary security sweep through the entire convention area. Everyone was to be out of the site by 5:00 pm tonight so that security– Secret Service security, among others– could make their inspection. We should be allowed back into the site sometime tomorrow afternoon. The big convention news was the speculation surrounding Barack Obama‘s selection of his running mate. There were also a number of related stories regarding a variety of hoaxes involving the selection being perpetrated against both party supporters and the Washington press corp.

I have a couple minor points to finish up tomorrow afternoon. Our editorial staff is starting to trickle in. Paul West, the Washington bureau chief for the Baltimore Sun was the first to arrive in our workspace. I expect more people to arrive tomorrow and almost everyone to be here by Sunday. At that point we will shift into operational support for Sunday and Monday and I will get to see firsthand whether the time and effort I’ve put into this project will pay off.

Yesterday I promised I would get a picture of the building CNN has taken over for their convention coverage. Here it is. I took a few different shots because I wanted to capture just how dramatically the cable news network had seized the space. The entire building is theirs. They have painted the bricks on all four sides. They have flown in top chefs from New York to cater for them. They have created a back porch looking on at the Pepsi Center: the CNN Grill. I do wonder what prude made them drop the bar. I also noted that on tonight’s CNN broadcast they had begun inserting establishing shots of the exterior of the Pepsi Center taken from the CNN Grill between segments.

Work proceeded apace today. The energy around the Pepsi Center is growing as Monday looms nearer. More people, more activity, more manic phone calls and vendors more harried than ever. I got a chance to spend a bit of time with Joe Keenan, Director of the Senate Press Gallery. We needed to work out some confusing logistical details regarding seating arrangements in the press stands in the bowl. I would have liked to have taken some pictures as we walked around the press stands, but sadly the no photography rule is still in effect.

What I did appreciate was the sense that these seemingly anonymous elements of the government are actually run by real people, who laugh and joke and get serious or crabby just like the rest of us. It was a simple thing, really, moving some seats from one section of the press stands to another, but it also reminded me in some ways that government is– despite what we may say from time to time– an essentially human enterprise.

After we called it a day in the media workspace, I decided to forgo the fancy dinner with my colleagues and headed out into lower downtown Denver with a couple bucks and my camera. I just wanted a little time for myself and to explore a little bit. I’m staying at a hotel just a couple blocks from the 16th Street Mall, so I headed over that way to walk around and got a couple pictures that I’m particularly happy with.

Street performing has been popular on the mall for a long time. I headed over there thinking I might add one or more of the performers to my 100 Strangers project. The sun was going down and it was getting somewhat dark by the time I came across a man I thought would make an excellent candidate for the project. He was playing music on a large collection of glasses filled with various levels of water. While I watched, he played classical pieces from Mozart as well as some Beatles and some traditionals. Every time the performer took a break between songs and I thought I had an opportunity to approach him a woman off to his left would begin explosively describing a vast litany of conspiracies and unreflected political theories. — This is also part of the character of the mall. So I snapped a few pictures and moved on.

I did get a chance to approach a clown named Calvo who was barking up interest in “Burlesque As It Was” at Lannie’s Clocktower Cabaret. He claimed that Barack Obama had already made his reservations for both of the special Monday and Tuesday night shows they are putting on to coincide with the Democratic National Convention. I think this was just an attempt to be relevant. It is very difficult to escape the notion that Denver is the host city for the convention. It is everywhere. But now that I think about it, Calvo made no mention of whether Michelle would be accompanying Barack. It makes me wonder.

In convention news, Obama has stated that he’s decided on his running mate and will announce that decision on Saturday in Springfield, Illinois. Also, rumors continue to circulate the Pepsi Center that the stage will be revealed to the public tomorrow. I hope that means that the restrictions on photography inside the bowl will be lifted.

Tune in tomorrow and find out!

Hurry up and wait. Today was dominated by the call to action: hurry up and wait. I hurried to make sure I would be available for vendors to deliver office equipment– monitors, keyboards, televisions, printers– only to wait to learn they will arrive early tomorrow morning. I hurried to make sure our assignments from the Congressional press galleries in the press stands, the central camera stand and the digital darkroom were what we had requested and been allocated only to learn that some of the spots were either confused, missing, still under construction, or left off the construction plans. So I waited for the press galleries to straighten things out with the contractors. All of this was not as bad as I may be making it out to be. It allowed me some time to catch up with other bits of the project. I got to do some work on QoS policy writing, performance testing and connectivity testing.

Some of the more interesting moments today were the meals. For lunch one of the broadcast engineers from KWGN took us to the Paramount Cafe. As soon as I walked in I immediately recognized it from when I would come up to Denver and go to Wax Trax on Colfax to buy records and then come down onto the 16th Street Mall for lunch. That was twenty years ago. Today a startling wash of nostalgia came over me as I stepped inside and sat down.

Four more people arrived in Denver today from Tribune. One left. There are now nine of us in town doing setup work for the convention coverage. For dinner we went as one big group to dinner at The Buckhorn Exchange. In their own words:

Denver’s original steakhouse, The Buckhorn Exchange is located in the city’s oldest neighborhood. This National Historic Landmark and Western Museum has been serving the finest in Old West fare since 1893. Prime grade beef steaks, buffalo prime rib, elk, salmon, quail, game hen, and succulent baby-back pork ribs are just some of the marvelous offerings on the Buckhorn menu. Exotic appetizers such as alligator tail, rattlesnake and buffalo sausage are available, and no dinner is complete without the house specialty, Rocky Mountain Oysters.

To the best of my recollection, I had never been to the Buckhorn Exchange before. I had thought about bringing the camera along to dinner to maybe take some sunset shots of the city. Schedules with a large group have a way of stretching out and I lost the light and put away the camera before we’d made plans on where we were going to go. Now I wish I had taken my camera with me to get some pictures of the inside of the place. The Buckhorn Exchange holds Colorado liquour license Number One. Live musicians perform nightly. Its walls hold a rare 575-piece taxidermy collection and a 125-piece gun collection. Elk, deer, moose, bison, big horn sheep, mountain lion, Colt .45s, Winchesters, Derringers, and a 1889 Sharp’s sporting rifle– to name just a few highlights.

In convention news, we learned that the DNCC will reveal the stage on Friday, so I should be able to get in there and take some more pictures of what it looks like as well as publish some of the previous pictures I had taken during its construction. I also learned that my city mayor, Richard M. Daley will be speaking at the DNC convention on Wednesday, August 27th– not that Daley is a particularly inspiring public speaker, but it seemed slightly relevant at the time I learned it.

Tomorrow I am going to try and see if I can’t find a way to take a picture of the building outside the Pepsi Center CNN has taken over for the duration of the convention. CNN has completely repainted the outside of the historic brick building with sloganism and marketing. I find it fascinating in a slow-moving train wreck sort of way.

Same song, second verse. Could get better but it’s gonna get worse. — Wait a minute. Wait a minute. That’s not right. That’s not what happened today. Yes, it is the second day of setup, and yes much of today was similar to much of yesterday. But things did not get worse. We made progress. We didn’t kill ourselves with excess work. In fact, the only really negative thing to happen today was an extensive collection of fliers mysteriously appeared all around the bowl at the Pepsi Center declaring: all photography is absolutely forbidden, violators will be escorted off the premises.

My colleagues were amused by this development with the restrictions on photography during the final construction phase and have taken to good-naturedly blaming me for the rule’s inception. I responded by asking: So, at an event that will have thousands of members of the media present, are you saying that I was the only one who thought to bring a camera? Crickets.

The DNC has not clarified the reasoning behind the restriction. The speculation among the people working on setup here is that the party wants to keep the timing of the revelation of their big bad voodoo stage on their time table, rather than allowing just any asshat with a camera and a network connection to spoil the surprise.

So let me just say that I think the stage in the Pepsi Center is impressive. I also wonder how the designers feel about the move of Day Four of the convention to Mile High Stadium– the big night will not take place on this grand stage they’ve put together. I know that if I had been working on the stage and that happened, I would feel let down.

Anyway. No pictures of the bowl. — So this evening after we were done working, I took some pictures around downtown Denver. I’m assuming those are safe. I mean, I was on public streets shooting pictures of the exteriors of well-known buildings. Maybe tomorrow there will be an addendum to the memo. Something about the current threat level being raised to prismatic! All devices containing prisms– like cameras– will be confiscated. Okay. I admit. Maybe that’s a bit overboard. I’ll stop now.

Other tidbits: I got to visit the LA Times western bureau office. I got the wireless router that wouldn’t behave yesterday to behave and do my bidding. I introduced two of my colleagues to sushi. I fixed a packet-queuing problem before it really was a problem. A reporter from the Denver Post stopped by our workspace to talk to us for story they’re working on regarding media preparation for the conventions. Is it wrong for me to think that newspapers writing stories about other newspapers’ business of making newspapers is slightly incestuous? I’m just asking.

And as a final note, because I know you all were very worried. Monday’s one-hour bomb scare closure of Market Street in lower downtown Denver has turned out to be a false alarm. These aren’t the mailboxes you’re looking for. You can go about your business.

I am in Denver, Colorado for the next nine days. After that, I fly to St. Paul, Minnesota and stay there for eleven more days. I am doing this in support of Tribune Publishing’s coverage of the two national party conventions. The Democratic National Convention begins Monday, August 25th in Denver. The Republican National Convention begins one week later Monday, September 1st in St. Paul. I am responsible for the networking needs for our newspapers for these two weeks.

Today was my first real day on the job. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve been planning this work since November of last year. Then again, a lot has happened in the interim. Plans change. Sometimes plans change a lot. Sometimes plans change and you don’t even realize that they’re now nearly the opposite of what you thought they were in the first place. Or was that the third place? I forget. Plans change.

Anyway. It’s late. And I’m rambling. I thought it would be worthwhile to write down some brief observations about each of my days working on the conventions. I’ve brought the camera with me as well and am taking pictures. However I think I will publish the pictures a bit later, after the events have officially opened. I’ll tell you why a little later.

Read the rest of this entry »