A few (not so great) pics from the 9/3 Springfield rally

They could be better -- we took our older 1.3 megapixel digital, which now seems like a rotary phone. We also were way, way back in the crowd, so I'm afraid the quality is much worse than it could be.

That being said, here are some of the ones we got that aren't embarrassingly bad:




Just a 'random crowd shot' from the 'Internet/White Ticket' line. A volunteer told us, when we asked her where Internet ticket folks went, 'way over there on the left.' We told her it made us feel right at home, and she laughed.





The big sign at the gate. You walked under it, coming in.





Three relatively bad shots of Kerry's speech, but then we were way in the back, and the camera doesn't do low-light shots well.

On a sad note, did anybody else who reads the Dayton paper see that DDN's web photo editor and part-time staffer, a guy named Jeff Adams, died during the setup for the rally last night? The article in the paper this morning said he collapsed just after setting up his cameras.

At midnight no less. :thumbsup:

much better than ours, since my co-chair "dropped" the camera in the potty at Buffalo Wild Wings!!

That's why I took the cheesy camera -- I didn't know what I'd be getting myself into, so I didn't want to take the one we just bought. I don't know that it would have done a great deal better, anyway -- the zoom on it isn't a lot better. I was surprised any of them came out so you could see anything, frankly!

I guess I should pat myself on the back for all those years of trying to take pictures of friends' rock bands inside clubs -- the expertise pays off!

Thank you so much for sharing them!

And, that story about Jeff Adams is just awful. :-(

To end on a bright note, here is a cool photo of the crowd from Dayton Daily News! You guys look GREAT!!

Must have been taken by the photog we saw running around on the roof of the Courtyard Marriott across from the square, while we were waiting in line. Some loudmouth behind us announced the police had snipers stationed on top of the hotel, but when I looked the guy had a camera. I didn't figure the FBI or Secret Service would be so obvious about it that some mook standing in line would figure it out.

We were somewhere around the middle of the left side of that photo, but probably out of the frame -- we were standing near a trailer that was used to haul in the public address system, it would be right off the frame to the left. That was a good setup -- the visibility was fairly open for most of the area, there.

My first husband was a sound engineer, I watched a lot of setups and breakdowns for rock shows and I have to say they did a really good job last night in Springfield. While we were on the shuttle, waiting for traffic to clear so we could get back out the Clark State, we saw the motorcade pass through the intersection the police had blocked off.

There was a family from Butler county we had a nice conversation with while we were sitting it out on the shuttle -- the husband was a former military guy who'd done his time and gotten out in the mid-sixties, he calls himself an unreconstructed hippie. He said he was so disgusted he could spit over the purple heart bandaids and the gum-flapping the conservatives are doing over Kerry's service when none of them had the guts to go themselves. Saw lots of 'Veterans For Kerry' hats and pins and bumper stickers in the shuttle lot. That's saying something for this part of Ohio.

Took my 19yo daughter Sara to the rally - a 100 mile trip. We got there at around 7:15 and there were already a few hundred people waiting. Some extremely nice lady gave us BLUE TICKETS!

We were able to get right up to the front of the blue area, along the barricades at the end of the runway to the stage. Had a great view, and John and John stopped just a few feet away and greeted people in the crowd before going up on the stage.

Sara was so moved she cried twice while John Kerry was speaking. I am really glad I took her. She is all fired up now.

OK - now the disclaimers. I am a horrible photographer, and these were taken with an 8yo cheap digital camera that is >1 mega-pixel.

















Feeling better about your photography skills now, nownow? I am naturally shakey and this camera doesn't take the picture until about 1/2 second after you press the button.

Since we were in the front we couldn't even get out until the crowd had decided that John was back on the bus. We didn't get home until 4am, mostly because of a dysfunctional waffle house outside of London.

I see myself! Or at least my neck and the back of my head!

It's all vanity on my part, griping about the photo quality. I'm actually a fairly competent photographer, if I can take my whole camera case, change lenses and wrangle my equipment to suit myself. This wasn't that kind of an occasion, though!

My camera's a six-year-old Olympus 1.3 megapixel, but I learned to jack that baby around before we went out and bought the new one a couple of months ago. The new one wouldn't have done any better, so I don't feel too bad about it!

Believe me, good or bad, photos will jog your memories of an occasion like that. As I've told Mr. Nownow often when we laugh at ourselves over how many pictures we take -- you never wish you'd taken fewer pictures!

Glad to hear your daughter had a good experience. I started out being interested when I was twelve years old, helping my dad deliver Carter/Mondale yard signs for the '76 election. He's gone, now, but he'd probably have thought a whole lot of John Kerry -- and very little of the Dim Son.

So close-up! Thank you for these great photos... I love 'em!!