Photographers Blog

Reuters Boston staff photographer Brian Snyder is traveling with Republican U.S. presidential nominee John McCain through election day. He and his colleague Jason Reed traveling with the Obama campaign have been posting daily blog entries sharing their experiences and favorite pictures of the day from their campaign coverage.

In my past campaign coverage experience U.S. presidential candidates do not often continue to campaign on election day. Instead they do a long series of satellite interviews with local television and radio stations in battleground states. But, after a seven state, 24-hour day of campaigning, Senator John McCain dropped off his ballot at his local polling place and headed back out on the campaign trail with a flight to Grand Junction, Colorado for a campaign rally, the final rally of what has been a long presidential campaign. Senator and Mrs. McCain climbed the steps to their campaign plane after that final rally, turned, and waved to the crowd gathered below for a final time as the McCain 2008 presidential campaign wound down. Hours later McCain would call Senator Barack Obama to concede defeat and congratulate the new president-elect.

Reuters Boston staff photographer Brian Snyder is traveling with Republican U.S. presidential nominee John McCain through election day November 4. He and his colleague Jason Reed traveling with the Obama campaign are posting daily blog entries on the Reuters photographers blog sharing their experiences and favorite pictures of the day from their campaign coverage.

The custom painted “Straight Talk Express” McCain campaign bus is one of the carry-over themes and props from Senator John McCain’s presidential run in the year 2000. Though reporters and photographers can no longer ride on the bus with McCain to experience first hand the “straight talk” he was famous for dispensing during the 2000 campaign to groups of media huddled inside, the senator does use it periodically now for his arrival at campaign stops. We don’t know (and neither do some of the Senator’s staff members who we asked) exactly how many “Straight Talk Express” buses are now positioned and roaming the country waiting for the senator to drop in by plane and jump aboard. The media traveling with the campaign see them suddenly appear at airports in states from coast to coast. Despite the fact that the bus is no longer the place of continual interaction with reporters that it once was, the symbolism of the bus and its legendary role in the 2000 campaign seem to live on.

Reuters Washington staff photographer Jason Reed is traveling with Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Barack Obama through election day November 4. He and his colleague Brian Snyder traveling with the McCain campaign are posting daily photographers blog entries sharing their experiences and favorite pictures of the day from their campaign coverage.

Pumpkins, pumpkins everywhere! It’s Halloween on the Obama presidential campaign trail.

One of the quirkiest American traditions I know, which, as a child growing up in Australia I didn’t really experience and therefore still find a little hard to understand what it’s all about, is Halloween. A custom brought over to the United States in some version by Irish immigrants in the 1800′s, Halloween had its origins in a Celtic end-of-harvest festival celebrated by pagans, and in its modern form invokes ghoulish-themed activities such as trick-or-treating, ghost tours and the carving of jack-o’-lanterns from giant pumpkins.
 
Every four years the paths of Halloween traditions and the U.S. Presidential election collide and so it played out once again in front of the cameras Thursday, during our travels with Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama in Florida. Following a campaign rally in Sarasota, Florida, we passed by the United Methodist Church’s pumpkin patch and stopped by for Obama to buy a couple of pumpkins.