Shooting Around the Politics

I have been fortunate within the past year to have had an opportunity to photograph the Ohio governor and two successive mayors of the city of Cincinnati. Admittedly i have only seen eye-to-eye politically with one of these three men (and i won't tell you which), but it is not my place as a photojournalist to place the weight of my own politics on the portraits i have taken of these gentlemen for publication. Hopeful any elected official will be judged by his or her actions and accomplishments, not by how well i managed to make them look in my photographs.
The Feburary Cincy Magazine is running my image of recently elected Mayor John Cranley on the cover.

©David Sorcher 2014

Honestly this was the last photo i expected to see show up on this month's cover and i'll tell you why in a moment. In fact i had no idea i was even shooting for a possible cover that day. This shoot didn't evolve in anyway similar to my shoot with the out-going mayor Mark Mallory just a few weeks earlier. Mark was scheduled as a dedicated photo shoot. It was just me and Mark (with, of course, both mine and the mayor's assistants in tow) and Mark offered me an unprecedented amount of his time and the keys to the castle, so to speak, leading to the most excellent location for our clock tower shots (definitely my favorite portrait session of the year). For Mayor Cranley, however, i came along with the interviewer, Peter Bronson. I hate to generalize, but that almost always puts me, as the photographer, at somewhat of a disadvantage. This is, of course, no fault of Pete. When time is at a premium, as i was sure it was that morning with a brand new mayor attempting to sort out the business of his new office, the interview, the words, are always going to take precedence. I ran into the same situation when i shot Governor Kasich.

©David Sorcher 2014

So the great majority of my photographs of the mayor that morning were existing light candids taken during the interview process. As Pete questioned the Mayor on everything from influences to the streetcar controversy i stealthily circled the room trying my best to find moments of either stillness or expressiveness and hopefully come away with at least a few shots where the subject's mouth wasn't awkwardly open in some half-stated response. 

©David Sorcher @2014

I wasn't quite sure exactly how much time the mayor was willing to give us, but as the interview dragged on i was pretty sure that any time i would have one-on-one with Mr. Cranley was going to be short. So at one point i stopped shooting and set up an umbrella light at the mayor's desk in preparation for the possibility of some posed shots. Now, i wasn't all that excited about a shot at his desk. It is, after all, the expected shot of office, a standard set up with desk, chair and flags in the background. I did a similar shot for Mayor Mallory just to cover all the bases and hoped that the magazine would have the good taste to use one of my more inventive options (they did). But as the clock ticked on it was looking more and more like i would have few other opportunities, if any, for a posed shot. Sure enough, once Pete had finished i had no more than just a couple of short minutes to shoot the image which would become this month's cover. I took only three or four frames before the members of the mayor's ten o'clock meeting began filing into the room. As the meeting started i was still breaking down my light stand. If i had not had the forethought to set up my lights in advance i would have only had the candids to submit. Fortunately the mayor gave me at least one good expression and it all worked out. 

©David Sorcher 2014

Being the perfectionist i tend to be it would probably be fair to say that i left that morning not feeling fully satisfied with the images i had captured, though not too worried since i was not yet aware that the magazine was thinking they might find a cover shot in there somewhere. Still, i wanted to offer them a bit more to choose from. I had taken it upon myself to spend a good part of the mayor's first day in office earlier that week down at City Hall because the much heated streetcar debate seemed to be coming to a head. To give you the short story, the Cincinnati streetcar is a controversial project that had received much support from the previous mayor and administration. It was cleared to proceed, but Mayor Cranley had run on a platform that promised to squash the program and the newly elected city council had lost its solid majority in favor of proceeding. Hundreds of citizens turned out to speak their mind on the subject and the new mayor's agenda was put immediately to the test. 

©David Sorcher 2014

©David Sorcher 2014

Above Mayor Cranley is seen reviewing the proposed routes for the streetcar as citizens speak to the city council in an open meeting. After a short stoppage of a couple of weeks to review the figures work has indeed continued on the streetcar. Two councilmen were convinced to change their vote on the matter after the review. It was undoubtable a major blow to the mayor's agenda and probably seemed an inconceivable turn of events at the time of his interview. 

If you catch me at the bar someday i might actually have something to say about politicians, issues and streetcar projects over a beer and a shot. Like anyone else, i have opinions, perhaps stronger than most. But when it comes to talking about these photographs you will no doubt find my discussion limited to ƒ-stops and shutter speeds, framing, ISO and lighting techniques. While i was privy to the conversation, having been in the room at the time, i have not read the article and will not be commenting on anything that our new mayor may have said in his interview with Mr. Bronson. I am and will remain photographically neutral on politics.