Last week, I met President Barack Obama at the airport. Okay, maybe there was a camera lens, a fence and half a dozen secret service agents between us, but I did photograph his arrival to the San Francisco International Airport.
Last week, I met President Barack Obama at the airport.
Okay, maybe there was a camera lens, a fence and half a dozen secret service agents between us, but I did photograph his arrival to the San Francisco International Airport.
The nation’s leader touched down at the airstrip by the bay Friday evening at about 8:30 p.m. and departed Saturday morning a little after 11:30 a.m. as part of a trip that included a fundraiser benefit with rapper Kanye West. I covered the event as a photographer for the Hollister Free Lance.
I knew it would be an event with several hours of surprises when I arrived and saw more security than I had ever seen in my life, including a bomb detection unit.
As I pinned my press pool pass to my coat Friday evening, I learned my enthusiasm was not the norm. Many of the other photographers had been working in the industry for more years than I’d been alive and boasted of piles of the type of paper credential I proudly affixed to my lapel.
Just finding the parking lot where we were supposed to meet proved to be an interesting experience. I found myself cruising through a world of closed gates and fences, past an intimidating Coast Guard building on the backside of the airport.
I looked to the right and saw two men wearing suits. Since Californians don’t have much of a penchant for dressing up, I assumed the pair must be special event staff so I rolled down the window of my Prius, gave them my best hesitant smile and before I could say a word, the tall, dirty-blond in the suit spoke confidently.
“You’re in the right place,” he said.
There was no questioning who I was or reference to why I was here, almost as if the man didn’t want to divulge the event in case I wasn’t actually supposed to be there. Eventually, I found the parking lot where media were supposed to wait, cut the motor, rolled down a window and looked around. I could see the grey blue waters, seagulls and two television trucks from competing networks parked about as far away from each other as possible.
After a few minutes, I heard a loud roar and found myself craning my neck to look out the car window up at the sky, wondering if the president’s Air Force One had decided to land a few hours early. I checked my watch. It was 5:11 p.m. Still three more hours to go.
Then I heard the familiar rumble of a motorcycle—a sound heard frequently in downtown Hollister, especially during the July biker rally—and an Associated Press photographer came to a stop in a parking spot beside the ocean.
Slowly, the crowd of camera-carrying people grew. Someone instructed the group to get started and the photographers headed to a curb, pulled out their cameras and lens, and lined them up along the street for inspection.
I watched. Then, I panicked. The idea of setting my gear on the ground, stepping away and letting someone else handle it—even if they were some of the nation’s top security officers—was a bit unnerving. Nearby, several men wore vests labeled, “Secret Service.” I felt like I was in a movie.
Security experts inspected our bus—which looked to be a fairly normal vehicle—though they were completing what I can only assume was a bomb check. We climbed aboard. During the inspections, darkness had crept in. Eventually, the bus followed the red brake lights of five or six media vans to the tarmac.
It would have been a routine bus trip in very slow traffic except for the fact that I was sitting next to a secret service agent, who said we could call him, Agent Bob.
We arrived to find the news trucks already in place, bleachers for an audience and two fenced-in holding areas for crowds along with a raised platform for media. I practiced a few photos.
“Beep, Beep,” said my camera as I focused in on the tarmac.
“Which of you forgot to turn that off?” said one of the veteran photographers, as he addressed me and another camera-carrier.
It was clear I had busted press pool etiquette. With this group, there were some unspoken rules that I was going to have to learn quickly.
The minutes ticked by. I asked the veteran photographers how close we would get—not very— and how long the president would appear—not long—before resigning myself to wait for Air Force One’s arrival.
And then—it landed! The huge, customized Boeing 747-200B looked like a normal aircraft, except for its pale blue paint job and some other details, namely its stately presidential seal, covered windows on the upper level, and the words: “United States of America.” Stairs unfolded in the back and people poured out. Then, a set of stairs was rolled up to the front door. Obama appeared as a silhouette in the entryway. The nation’s president was slightly hunched, likely from the weight of too many years in office, and too many state secrets.
Click, click, click went the cameras. Obama scurried down the stairs in a flurry of feet and was gone.
He might have touched the tarmac before climbing into the waiting presidential limo but I’m not sure. Photos from other media outlets showed Obama exchanging pleasantries with Gov. Jerry Brown and San Francisco’s Mayor Ed Lee. From my angle, I never saw it.
He ducked into the waiting black limo stamped with his presidential seal and was visible just as a face in the window of the disappearing car. Just like that, he was gone.
Reporters pulled out their laptops, cropped the best images and published them before we left the tarmac. Then, we went home, crawled into bed and prepared to repeat the process in the daylight for the president’s morning departure.
As I drove home, I thought of all the people I couldn’t wait to tell about my adventure, including family, friends and colleagues. But I also mused that I didn’t really feel I had seen the leader of our country.
Obama had been a face in the lens of my camera for a few moments. I saw his grey hair, his hands outstretched in a wave. But the glass between us kept us in our different worlds, just as he had felt so distanced from me each time I had seem him on television, Twitter and the front-page of newspapers.
I had seen the president of the United States but I did not really see him. In the blink of some clicks and flashes, he was gone and what remained was a baffled reporter and some photos capturing a tiny piece of history.
Katie Helland is a reporter for the Hollister Free Lance.
