News
The Image Works now representing CandidatePhotos
The Image Works,a stock photography company based in Woodstock, NY, has announced that it is now representing a new image collection called CandidatePhotos featuring images of politicians shot by photographer Chris Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald spent the past two years traveling from state to state to photograph the primaries, the candidates, and the people. The image library portray’s the candidates (nine Democrats and eleven Republicans) including a unique view of the ‘GOTV’ (get out the vote) activities of grassroots volunteers largely ignored by mainstream media. In the end Fitzgerald traveled more than 55,000 miles in 30 states, covering 20 candidates.
Fitzgerald’s journey began in 2006, when, while hiking across Spain, he began to reevaluate the direction his career had taken. After working almost exclusively as an editorial portrait photographer, Fitzgerald decided “to pursue a different direction in my career and go back to my roots of photojournalism.” He decided to cover the presidential race. “There is a lot of drama, excitement and emotion that you are a witness to on the campaign trail that doesn’t happen in other types of photojournalism, “ he says. “I sensed the race would be wide open but I had no idea how historic it would be.”
Fitzgerald spent the first year in New Hampshire, where getting in early got him extraordinary access to the candidates. He focused on what is called retail politics— following the candidates as they went to house parties and town hall meetings, visited Main Street and diners—before the media was really paying attention.
After New Hampshire, Fitzgerald began a ten month road trip, setting up in battleground states where he would rendezvous with the candidates. He also documented the grassroots ‘get out the vote’ activities of volunteers for the leading candidates. As Barack Obama emerged as a major candidate, Fitzgerald began to focus on the effects of his candidacy on the African-American community. His attention to covering African-American neighborhoods, businesses, and community centers added an exciting dimension to his election photography.
Maintaining his status as an outsider, says Fitzgerald, gave him “a competitive advantage at the rallies ... I would be outside the buffer shooting what the traveling press couldn’t get, different viewpoints. This approach allowed me to cover the candidates from a different perspective. I also captured a lot of the raw emotions of the people because I could move throughout the audience.”
Web: www.theimageworks.com - www.candidatephotos.com - Click here to view the featured image.
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