Muki.Dorifuto.com Photography talk with random tangents into the unknown

Fighting from the backlines

My day job as a journalist and my weekend passion as a photographer sometimes collide.

So while reading about journalist Annabel Crabb on her (rather lengthy) post about "Everything you ever wanted to know about campaigning... but didn't", I was pretty pleased to read these few lines:

Time now to mention specifically the people who have it the toughest on any campaign trail - the people who supply the visuals.

Photographers and camera crews get up earlier than anyone else on the campaign, and go to bed later.

When you see footage of Tony Abbott riding at 5.30am through freezing Melbourne streets, it's because several people wielding back-breaking cameras and sound equipment have arisen at 4:00am, found a vehicle from which they can awkwardly dangle, and captured it for you.

When you see one brilliant campaign image that encapsulates the mood of the day, it's because a photographer has worked an 18-hour day, capturing and discarding tens of thousands of slightly inferior images to bring you that particular one.

In truth, these people are the most important people of the campaign, and the reason why the candidates even bother with a media contingent.

For all the questions, all the policy, all the daily battle, good pictures on the evening news beat everything, and that's what the campaign teams are after.

Perhaps because it fits in with my feeling that the ones deserving praise and recognition aren't always the ones in the front line and are most often forgotten.

You'll see a little bit more of this sentiment in my report on SMASH! 2010 when it comes out later this week.