Politics | Alex Farris Photo Blog

This is the post I originally promised two years ago.

In the lead-up to medical school, and in between shifts as an emergency room scribe, I did a few more photo assignments for The Indianapolis Star. One of those assignments, the Carmel mayoral election, made the front page of the paper the next day, and although I was changing careers, I was still excited about it.

During medical school, I managed to cover three weddings. Two of those were booked before I started school and occurred during the first semester, so I had to find a way to fit them in between anatomy exams. (Definitely worth it; both weddings were special and intimate ceremonies joining two good people together.) The third wedding just could not be passed up, even though by then (third semester) I was well aware of how much of a time commitment medical school is. My friend Steph, featured twice on this blog, had a beautiful wedding in Florida in the fall of 2016 before moving to England with her husband the following winter. If her wedding (which begins here with photo 17) is the last one I cover as a photographer, I'll be quite happy to end that career with such a great couple.

Scecina pitcher Julia Blastic (center) and other teammates celebrate as Lea Thompson (right) runs home after Justice Carmichael's grand-slam home run during Scecina's 7-4 victory over Cathedral in the high school city softball title game at Brookside Park, Saturday, May 9, 2015.

I went back and forth on this one. This whole "covering Election Day Obama campaign volunteers in Columbus" idea started with talking to Harold, an Obama '08 volunteer, while covering the President's event in Columbus in October. And yet, I ended up not using his material because I got enough on that day. I thought of making the end result just audio, and then I thought of putting the photos on top to make an audio slideshow, and then I settled on keeping the audio and photos separate. Makes the navigation through all this stuff freer, I guess. Finally, the decision to follow Obama volunteers instead of Romney volunteers came from talking with Harold and wanting to finish that story. Of course, that didn't pan out, but something else did. Seriously, these people are dedicated.

So, here it is, finally. I'm sure if I didn't have a day job outside of journalism I would have finished this less than three days after the election. (By the way: Everything was recorded on my iPhone, that gorgeous piece of journalistic magic that made shelling out money for a dedicated audio recorder optional.)

As for the photos: I didn't do any coverage in 2008 (besides one Obama-with-a-baby photo that became my first work published in the IDS), so this presidential election has been an eye-opener. I carried over some lessons from covering the midterm elections in 2010 for the IDS, but of course this year everything played out on a much larger scale. I'm no Damon Winter or Charles Dharapak, but maybe I'm getting there, and I'm sure Demotix appreciates it.

Obama campaign staging location director Jay Smith makes the call to close the German Village field office at the end of Election Day, Nov. 7, 2012, in Columbus, Ohio.

I'm about to leave the Microtel south of Columbus, Ohio, but before I do, I wanted to post to the site a few photos from Cleveland, where Obama made a late (started at 8 p.m.) stop at Burke Lakefront Airport. He was raspy from the rest of his cross-country tour, but I've never seen him use his fists so much. This deserves a study like I did for Paul Ryan, but there isn't much time for that now. Maybe later. Maybe.

Of course, there are many more Obama photos on Demotix. What didn't make it there: At least two people had to leave the area I was in because they were close to fainting before Obama spoke, and one was near tears while he spoke. That "Fired up! Ready to go!" chant is a bit more literal than one might think.

Also, Romney and Ryan were in Ohio yesterday, too. Mitt was in Cincinnati in the morning, and Paul was in Defiance, Ohio, in the evening. I wish I could have gone to those events, as well, but there are only so many miles one can drive in a day.

President Barack Obama makes a forceful point to an estimated 12,000 people at Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland during the last stop on his two-day cross-country campaign swing, Thursday, October 25, 2012. Before Cleveland, Obama flew to Chicago, where he cast his early vote.