Welcome to Tampa! Site of the Republican National Convention and Tropical Storm Issac! I’m here for the next 5 days to cover the Republicans. Fortunately they will basically cancel the first day (Monday), unfortunately it’s due to the storm coming through Florida. So we’ll probably spend the rest of the day taking storm photos. 

Here I am at the Tampa airport with some odd creature that was wandering through the baggage area. We weren’t sure what he was about.

Since I arrived on Saturday, the inside of the Tampa Forum has been a hive of activity. All the various audio-visual things are tested including the large teleprompter screen straight ahead of the main podium. This morning it displayed a speech, presumably for someone to read and it began, “Four score and seven years ago, our forefathers….” I thought, I think that speech has been used before.

I walked out of the hotel this morning to see a big bus with “Zombie for President” painted on the sign with a picture of a zombie. Turns out it was a bus for Ron Paul supporters, who had a big rally Sunday. 

Here I am with Eva Hambach, our photo editor, at the my spot.

 

AFP assigned me to the center camera position, which is the main position in the arena. It’s from the same angle that most of the tv pictures are shot from. This involves a great deal of setting up camera platforms and computers. All the cameras are digital now and we can shoot a picture have it go directly to the editor’s desk. She can then put it out on the AFP wire where all the clients can see it. Everything is quite speedy now and puts a lot of pressure on us to get the photos out quickly.