The Iowa State Fair and the U.S. Presidential election campaign are pure “Americana” to me. Though at times, both seem so over the top but in completely opposite directions. From the Hollywood-esque nature of the politicians rolling through the crowds (rock stars in suit) to the real down-home kindness and curiosity of the Midwest people, just wanting to be out enjoying the atmosphere.

(Click on the images to view in high resolution)

The Fair is one of the first unofficial steps in the run for the Presidency. The candidates go through their rights of passage from flipping pork chops, eating the latest deep fried concoction, and shaking hands with anyone within arm’s reach, while the sights and smells of the Fair conjures up memories of my own childhood.

The candidates roam around the grounds holding their walking photo-ops, with the press corps following their every move, though I found myself occasionally walking off in brief downtime between candidates to grab snapshots of the environment.

The images are paired together as two parts of a whole from the same assignment. One half is the news and my job, the other stemmed from my memories and how the two are strangely connected.

Hockey and politics? A strange combination.

As a Canadian growing up in a small rural town, street hockey was a big part of my youth. So when the White House announced an event billed as a street hockey game on the South Lawn of the White House as part of first lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” initiative, a lot of great memories came flooding back. Stoppages in play for oncoming cars and playing under street lights until all hours of the night were a way of life.

We do a lot of remotes at the White House and with a ceremony being held for the 2010 Stanley Cup Champions Chicago Black Hawks in the shadow of one of the world’s most recognizable buildings, I was trying to come up with an interesting way to capture the event.

I made a trip to the local department store to pick up a small plastic container to package up a Canon 5D Mark II, 15mm fisheye lens and a pocketwizard transmitter. They would only be using a plastic hockey ball, so I wouldn’t need a professional plexiglass version that we use at NHL hockey games.

I made a little modification to the container in my garage the night before to keep everything wrapped up, to keep all the cables out of the way and protect anyone who might bump into the camera.

Leading up to the midterm elections in November, I worked on a project photographing scenes around the Presidency using an instant film camera called a Fuji Instax, similar to a Polaroid.

(Click here to view the selection in Full Focus.)

That was right on the heels of a President Obama 11 day, 4 country trip to Asia including stops in Mumbai and New Delhi, India.

We arrived several hours early for a welcoming ceremony for Obama at Rashtrapati Bhavan, the Indian Presidential Palace, in New Delhi. The security was very tight but once we were inside and in our position, I had time to shoot some Polaroids.

Want to hear a secret?

“U.S. President Barack Obama will make an unannounced visit to Afghanistan but you cannot tell anyone.” Those seemed like simple enough guidelines, but it certainly wouldn’t end up that way.

It started with a call from Washington Editor in Charge Jim Bourg during my shift at the White House on Wednesday afternoon. “I never know how to start these kind of conversations…” he said. “You know when we have these trips where we really can’t talk about it?” I had a feeling I knew where this was headed. He kind of paused a bit trying to find the words to say it, without really saying it. But I stopped him and said, “I know where you are going with this and you don’t have to go any further.” Obama would make a surprise visit to Afghanistan. I was careful not to answer his questions out loud, so that anyone standing by wouldn’t figure out the questions or the subject matter, but we were on the same page. He just said it was tomorrow night. The trip would be about 30 hours there and back, with 25 of those hours in the air. I would finish my shift as usual and go to see him in the office to get more details.

We went through the rough details, it was almost the same as Obama’s last announced trip to Afghanistan when I went with him back in late March this year. This would be my fourth such Presidential trip, three times to Afghanistan and once to Iraq. There is always a huge veil of secrecy, rightfully so.

I went home to install some new global aircards to file in Afghanistan and to test the BGAN Satphone in the parking lot next to my house. I didn’t think we would have time to set it up since we move around so fast when we go on these trips. But you have to be prepared for any scenario, especially after the communication nightmares from our last trip to Afghanistan.

I finally got to bed at 2am after making sure all my equipment was working and all my gear was packed and ready to go. I would be up again after four hours of sleep. I received an email Wednesday night to attend a meeting at the White House at 1pm the next day with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and the other journalists asked to go on this trip. It was brief with many of the same details as the last secret visit. We of course could not tell anyone. So I headed home to grab my things, we had to meet at Andrews Air Force Base in just a few hours.

White House photographer Jim Young has been using a Fuji Instax to produce images while on assignment covering President Obama. Over the past few months Jim has developed a collection of Polaroid-type images that illustrate what surrounds the presidency. View the series here.

It all started out with a phone call from Reuters News Pictures Washington Editor In Charge Jim Bourg on Thursday night informing me there was a secret Presidential trip leaving on Saturday to an undisclosed destination which Reuters would like me to travel with the president on. I was told that this was very secretive and that I was not to mention it to anyone and that no details were available yet. I had been with President Obama on his secret trip to Baghdad last year, so it was pretty easy to figure out that the destination this time might be Afghanistan, a trip which had been highly anticipated since Obama became president 15 months ago. I was to expect to be contacted directly by the White House for a meeting to discuss the details. But I was to “open” the White House as the first Reuters photographer arriving there on Friday morning at 7am, my scheduled shift, and to go about my day as planned acting as if everything was normal. Nothing could be further from the truth.

That afternoon I was called in to meet with Press Secretary Robert Gibbs in his office at 4pm, along with some of the other members of the 14 person media travel pool who would be going on the secret trip aboard Air Force One.

We were given a schedule of events and were sworn to secrecy. I headed home to pack and test out the BGAN satellite phone I had been provided by Reuters for the trip.

On Saturday night, I met up with the 2 other wire service photographers who were in the travel pool at a gate at Andrews Air Force Base at 7pm, an hour before our call time. But after sitting in the cars for an hour outside the Air Force base gate, and when no one else showed up, we figured that we better make a protective phone call to the White House staff. It seemed we were a half-mile from the correct entry point to the base. Whoops! The details we had been given were a little too secretive even for us!

Our names were checked off a list at the gate and we drove into a parking lot. We unloaded all of our gear and it was all turned over to the U.S. Secret Service. All electronics, cameras, and blackberries were to be loaded on to the plane by them and we would get not them back until we were in flight.

The full media pool then waited on a bus for about an hour until we were driven inside the aircraft hanger where Air Force One was parked. Normally we board Air Force One in broad daylight in the middle of an open air force base tarmac and climb up the rear stairs of the aircraft. But in this case, we were asked to board the plane after dark, inside a hangar, entering the plane from the front where the president does, which we never do, and we got to see a lot of the plane that I had never seen before.

Sleep is overrated.On Wednesday, I was up at 5:30am so I could start my White House shift. U.S. President Barack Obama had 5 press events on his schedule for the day, so I ended up staying until 7pm. I had just sat down to dinner at 8.30pm, when I heard my cell phone ringing, it was Washington Editor-In-Charge Jim Bourg calling about breaking coverage for an Obama event but it was being kept very quiet. The President was planning to fly to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware and take part in the dignified transfer and return of 18 U.S. personnel who died Monday in Afghanistan, so I had to be back at the White House by 10pm. The event would be covered the White House travel pool, a very small group of photographers and reporters who always travel with the President, but what we would be allowed to cover was unclear..The pool left the White House at 10:45pm for a short drive to Fort McNair military base to board 2 U.S. Marines’ helicopters for the 40 minute flight to Dover. The president would depart separately from the South Lawn on Marine One and we would meet at the Air Base in Dover. The details of Obama’s trip would not be released until the official pool report is released in an email as he departs on the helicopter...We arrive a couple of minutes before Obama and we are told that we can only photograph the President’s arrival on Marine One, but is was unclear whether we were going to see any of the soldiers return. We were taken to a holding room and given a military briefing on how the event would take place. Even though 18 soldiers and DEA agents were returning to the U.S., the press would only cover the dignified transfer of U.S. Army Sgt. Dale R. Griffin of Terre Haute, Indiana, as per family member’s wishes, and witnessed by Obama. Obama would be meeting with the family members and taking part in the return of the other 17 personnel over the next 3 hours. There is no press coverage..We waited on a bus for the signal that we could drive out onto the tarmac and at 3:50 am we head out to the C-17 military transport plane and it is very, very dark. The event takes about 10 minutes but the actual transfer from the plane to the truck is over in seconds. Obama walks off the tarmac and we are rushed back on our helicopter for the flight back to Washington.A very quiet and solemn event, but with all dignity and respect for a soldier who lost his life..I start filing while still on the tarmac and I manage to get 4-5 pix filed to our pictures desk in Singapore by the time we take off. We can still get an aircard signal on the flight back, but it fades in and out, and sometimes it’s very weak. We return back to Fort McNair and board our vans for the ride back to the White House. I finish up my filing at the press room and wrap up at 6am, 23 hrs after my day had started. The sky is starting to lighten and someone else will be comingto the White House within the hour to start the morning shift, so it’s time to go home and get some sleep..But a couple hours later, I can hear my daughter calling out to me downstairs. Time to get up for another day…