2012 sure has been a fun year for political photography! Let me be clear, I can’t wait for all of the phone calls and commercials to end, but on the positive side of things, I sure have enjoyed photographing the process! I had previously photographed President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and presidential nominee (I’m not sure if I’m supposed to capitalize ‘presidential nominee’) Mitt Romney, so when the Paul Ryan rally was announced at Lakewood High School, I signed up to attend and brought my camera!
One of the folks who spoke before introducing Paul Ryan was Bob Beauprez, former Republican member of the United States House of Representatives, representing the 7th Congressional District of Colorado. I specifically highlight him, because after the event I went to Starbucks and ended up sitting down and chatting with him. I really enjoyed meeting him! He couldn’t have been more friendly and it was fun hearing that he now lives on a bison ranch when he’s not in the political world…
Also shown in the following picture is Joe Coors, current Republican candidate in 2012 for the same Colorado’s 7th Congressional District. A small world coincidence is that I sat on a plane a few weeks later en route to the Republican National Convention next to Pete Coors (Joe’s brother, and Chairman of the Molson Coors Brewing Company), so it was neat to be able to show him pictures I had just taken of his brother!
.jpg "Bob Beauprez and Joe Coors")
The energy and excitement in the small gynmasium was really fun to experience. It was one of those scenes that I had only seen on the news or in movies, so to experience a tiny ‘rally’ was really cool. Here are some of my favorite photos:
.jpg "Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan")
