Less than two years after joining The New York Times staff, and having never covered a presidential campaign before, Damon Winter won instant praise from fellow photographers for his photos of Barack Obama’s historic run for president. Winter shot more than 90,000 images of Obama and the Obama campaign. PDN recently spoke to Winter about what it was like to cover the winning ticket for the Times. Excerpts from the interview follow:

PDN: A lot of people saw your work through the multimedia presentation you did in August on the Times Web site. Did you get a lot of response to that?

Damon Winter: Yeah. Our web presence on the campaign has really been extraordinary. That’s one of a number of multimedia pieces they’ve done over the course of the campaign and I think the response has been really strong to all of them.

PDN: What do you have in mind when you’re shooting? Are you shooting primarily for the newspaper, or are you thinking you want to have a big body of work for historical reasons?

DW: I think it’s both. I want to make sure I have the day’s news covered and that I have everything that the print publication could want, but I’m also trying to keep in mind the body of work and how the story is going. Also, I’m out there competing with 20 to 60 other photographers. We’re all sort of in the same little bubble at the same event trying to come up with something different. Knowing that the wires have one kind of thing covered, I think I’m always trying to go for something a little different.

PDN: How do you make it different?

DW: This was my first time covering a campaign and to be honest, when I first started in New Hampshire, I didn’t really think I knew what I was doing. But we have really good editors at The Times. Our political editor, David Scull, was really good about pushing me to not shoot the straightforward shot, and to look around for different angles. And also to pay attention to the entire scene, pay attention to the crowds. Especially for Obama, the story was, for a large part, about all the excitement around him wherever he went.

PDN: Did you feel during the campaign that Obama would win the election?

DW: The strange thing about covering a campaign, especially when you’re traveling with a candidate, is that you’re in an insulated bubble. Probably no matter who you’re covering, you only get to see the people who really want to see the candidate. And they’re pretty much, across the board, all excited to see their candidate. I think it was especially so for Obama because he had energized such a strong and young and energetic crowd. When you’re in that bubble, it’s hard to see the big picture and see how the candidate you’re traveling with is really doing.



PDN: Did you have close access to the candidate?

DW: I would always petition for back-stage access. It was easier for the magazines to do; they were able to get more back-stage access. For us, I would have to give them a reason why we would want special access. If we were doing a more in-depth profile on Senator Obama, or if we had something that would really call for that more behind-the-scenes access, it would be easier to get it.

PDN: Do you think Obama got to know who you were?

DW: He knew who I was. I don’t think he ever called me by name, but every once in a while he’d look over and he’d be like, “You’ve got the New York Times guy right there.” I know he reads The Times every morning.

PDN: You have a diptych slide show from the campaign. How did that idea come about?

DW: I would take photos, totally away from the candidate, just photographs of the scene at the campaign stops, or at airports waiting for the candidate to show up. Anything that grabbed my eye. It didn’t necessarily have to pertain to the day’s news. As we were coming down to the end of the campaign, I was poring through my images. I had been looking at Stephen Crowley’s work. He’s another New York Times photographer who pairs up images a lot, and he does it pretty successfully. I started looking at these photos that didn’t seem to have a real purpose other than being interesting to my eye personally, and they started coming together when I paired them up. It allowed me to make some little personal commentaries by offering these two images together.

PDN: Did you get much reaction from your friends or family about covering Obama?

DW: Yeah. Half of my family, they’re strong Obama supporters, they’ve always voted for Democrats. The other side of my family leans more Republican. But this has been, in a way, a nice uniter for everybody. They’ve all been universally excited about me being out on the campaign trail and covering the next president.

PDN: I’ve always heard covering a campaign is exhausting. Are you glad it’s over? Do you miss it?

DW: It is a strange little world that you get used to. You get used to not having any time for yourself, zero personal time. You start at 5 in the morning and you’re pretty much working nonstop until you get back to your hotel at 11 or midnight. But there’s a certain camaraderie and you get used to the pacing of a life like that. Your body gets accustomed to it in some strange way.