©David Sorcher 2014
Last month i was asked to photograph yet another of our regional politicians for Cincy Magazine. This time it was Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie. As you can see from the above image, Congressman Massie is "out standing in his field", but before i get to how we came to this picturesque moment some background information is necessary.
©David Sorcher 2014
Originally i was offered one opportunity to shoot the Mr. Massie (btw, first tip when photographing politicians is not to show up and announce out loud that you are here to "shoot" the congressman ;-)). That was at an armed forces academy day at a local Kentucky high school where he was scheduled to speak. Knowing i would need some one-on-one time i reached out to his aide beforehand to set up when we could do that. She offered me 15 minutes of his time before he would be mingling with the attendees prior to his speech.
The school offered no good locations. Inside was mostly dark and institutional and outside was blazing sun with no good, relevant backgrounds, the worst of both worlds. I finally settled on the stage he would be speaking from, mostly for its simple background and the symbolism of the flags to at least tie him in to his office in some way. In the end, given the time allowance and other constraints, i think i produced the best portrait i could under the circumstances, though one which admittedly i find rather mundane at best and really just a tad bit boring.
©David Sorcher 2014
My second shooting opportunity that day came as Mr. Massie mingled with the crowd before his speech, speaking with constituents and students considering one of the military academies after high school. These weren't bad editorial moments, but not the kind of situation likely to produce a good photo for a full page bleed image for the article's cover page.
©David Sorcher 2014
My last opportunity that day was during the actual speech. These situations rarely produce great imagery and i wasn't expecting much. But just before Thomas was to be introduced i noticed that there was no spotlight for the speakers as i thought had been arranged. The overheads were very hot and out-weighed all the other light on the speakers. I alerted the congressman's aide who set someone on the task. Unfortunately, i don't think they were an actual lighting person. They did finally get a spot on the mark, but it was weak at best and didn't create a very good light ratio. In the end i believe i only submitted this one speaking shot which also shows the audience and some of the honorees on stage.
I was disappointed to say the least. The writer, Danny Restivo, had shared many very interesting facts about Thomas Massie with me before this day. He holds a master's degree in mechanical engineering from MIT and lives completely off-the-grid in a solar powered house that he built himself on his 1200 acre farm near Shawnee State Forest where he keeps bees and raises his own cattle and chickens. And when he is in Washington he drives an electric-powered Tesla around town. Frankly, this was not my preconceived picture of a Tea Party candidate. Given such a background i felt my images from the day were a complete failure.
My original impression was that Tom didn't want us to come out to his farm for photographs, but i wanted images that reflected Tom's self-sustainability, not just another politician in a suit. Since this was an aspect of his nature that had also impressed Danny and would be a big part of the article he was writing we both began conspiring to make a visit to the congressman's farm a possibility. Danny was going to talk with Tom that afternoon after the speech so he put that question on his agenda for their interview lunch.
©David Sorcher 2014
©David Sorcher 2014
As it turned out Tom was very willing to have us out. His only concerns seemed to be that he didn't want us to show unfinished aspects of his little castle on the hill (and the other side of the house does indeed sport castle-like turrets). His home is a work in progress. But the side i was most interested in was the one with the solar-paneled roof. It seems rare to find a Republican with such a solid personal investment in alternative energy, especially one living and serving in the middle of coal country.
©David Sorcher 2014
Tom has been keeping bees for a number of years and neither he nor his ten-year-old daughter Sarah showed any fear of them. For that matter neither was i, though i was not quite so hands on with the bees as Tom. We had an interesting chat about bee sustainability and colony collapse issues while i shot these. Oh yeah, and honey straight from the comb…delicious!
©David Sorcher 2014
©David Sorcher 2014
I also wanted to use a bit of the wonderful surrounding landscape for some of these, showing the man and his land. That winding road behind him is his driveway.
©David Sorcher 2014
At first it was agreed that we would not shoot inside Tom's house, but in the end he was most gracious about giving us an interior tour. I think that again he was more worried about photographs of unfinished aspects of his masterwork. And it is indeed that. Tom cut and carved the rafter beams himself from trees felled by an ice storm on the land. He also laid the hearth stones himself and incorporated a wood burning pizza oven into the design. The place was an architectural and artistic joy to behold and i was so glad to be able to visually connect this man to a work of which he is so obviously proud to have created.
©David Sorcher 2014
©David Sorcher 2014
Tom followed us down the long winding driveway as we were leaving for one last shot. I had hoped to capture some of his 50 head of cattle in the background of the first shot in this post, but just in case you never gave it much thought, it is really hard to actually cue a herd of cattle from a half mile off and they obviously had some other off-camera plans at the time i captured that shot. So he drove down to see us off and pose one last time with his bovines.
©David Sorcher 2014
As Danny and i started our two hour journey home i certainly felt much better about this shoot than the first one at the school. At least i feel that i have captured images that say something about the man himself, ones that show him in the midsts of his own environment and grant us some insight into who this person might be. I want to thank Tom for letting us peek into his private world. I honestly don't really know much about his politics. As i have mentioned in these pages before, i don't feel it is my place as a journalist to impose my own political views upon my subjects though i am pretty sure that if we went there we would no doubt find much to argue about. So i stuck to the matters at hand, finding common ground while i shot in talk on sustainability, off-the-grid living, alternative energy and beekeeping. It's comforting to know that in these days of harsh political division there is still room for common ground and understanding. While i might not vote for Tom if i lived in his district, i would certainly kick back and have a beer with him any day of the week.
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