Covering the General Assembly's special session can be lightly tedious at times, standing in badly lit rooms as people sit in chairs and drone (some but not all) on about some amendment or proposal, or meaningfully listen, or earnestly ask questions. It is hard work looking for little subtleties and persistently keeping an eye open for anything remotely interesting.

Many years ago, while in college, if my memory serves me correctly, I happened upon a coffee-table photo (an early strike in what has now become a lip-chomping obsession) in a used-books store. David Douglas Duncan's Self-Portrait USA. caught my attention for the two party symbols on the front which resembled the heads of two ceramic whiskey decanters, dressed as clowns with styrofoam hats, that sat on a bookshelf in my childhood bedroom for many years. The store name and location escape me, but somehow I came upon a second copy a few years later and gave it to one of my best friends from high school. We worked together on the school paper and yearbook, and he also is a photojournalist.

Duncan covered the 1968 party conventions (ironically the same year as the decanters) and made the book. The reproduction is a little dated but of high quality. The words are all Duncan, a little over the top with such phrase turns as "Secret Service agent: laser-beam eyes boring holes through everybody with a single glance..." but still entertaining. For some reason, the political poetry of many boring situations, often relying upon extreme closeups capturing slight facial gesticulation to convey his message. (Tight is right!)

The book is a foundation for much of my coverage, even though I have not turned its pages in a decade or more — the book resides somewhere in the Mississippi house of my mother and her husband. But its latent strength still holds me, and I can remember many of the pages and the images in my mind.

(Nikon D2Xs, Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8 @ 200mm, 1/80th sec. @ f/2.8, ISO 1600) 

(Nikon D2Xs, Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8 @ 200mm, 1/60th sec. @ f/2.8, ISO 1600)

(Nikon D2Xs, Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8 @ 125mm, 1/80th sec. @ f/2.8, ISO 1600)<>

(Nikon D2Xs, Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8 @ 200mm, 1/60th sec. @ f/2.8, ISO 1600)

It is not the most exciting work, and it is a mental hammer, constantly striking as my laser-beam eyes constantly survey the scene. It is fulfilling in some way. More will come as I have time.