Hidden banker

When a meeting of the Institute for International Finance held at the National Archives last week ended, some of the world's biggest bankers – from the CEO of JPMorgan Chase to that of France's Société Générale – emerged from the building and headed to their limos.

Most did not want to talk, and a few would have preferred not to be photographed. Among these was Lloyd Blankfein, CEO and chairman of Goldman Sachs. A man whose financial height greatly outdistances his physical stature, he took advantage of that and the rain to pull an official Goldman umbrella closely over his head and disappear from view.

How to deal with this? By dropping my camera to knee-level and shooting upwards, hoping that repeated exposures would do the trick. (Taking lots of photos is important in professional photography!)

And as the images revealed, Mr. Blankfein was apparently enjoying himself under that umbrella.

Leaving town

That's Sen. Max Baucus, who played a key role in the battle for health-care reform, headed out barely an hour after the Senate's passage of the legislation. That vote came at 7 a.m. on Christmas eve, after Republicans and Democrats had pretty much worn each other out in round-the-clock maneuvering.

Unless you're trapped in a house fire, you'll probably never see a group of people so happy to get out of a building as they were leaving the Capitol that morning. Still, the senator, who'd spent two years in what often appeared to be a losing battle for this legislation, had time to stop and wish me a Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays!

Stakeout

A magazine client, seeking to illustrate a story on banning the media from certain types of hearings, asked me recently to come up with a photo of a classic stakeout, preferably one outdoors. "No problem," I said. "We get them all the time. I'll send you something next week."

Well, it's been a slow week in Washington, what with Memorial Day and everything, and I was running out of time. But yesterday I was assigned to photograph a speech by Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus, and there were at least a few cameras there, even if this was in the dim ballroom of the National Press Club rather than outside some hearing room. (I actually remember talking to Klaus in 1989 during the Velvet Revolution, when he was a dissident economist working as a bank teller. You never know...)

So I decided to do what I could. I placed a single strobe in the balcony, illuminating not the speaker, but the media. And once I shot and saw how this videographer's face was illuminated, I knew I had something worthwhile. (I was reminded of the classic, high-contrast black and white of a photographer holding a rangefinder.)

Someone could print this and some similar photos and hand them out to new members of congress, world bank presidents, and others in authority here in DC, and say: "Remember, if you don't behave yourself, this is what you'll find outside your front door one morning."