Want to win a free seat to this fabulous workshop? Today is the last day to sign up to be eligible to win a $1700 pass to this one-of-a-kind educational experience. You can join me and one other instructor in New Orleans in October. All you have to do to enter is join the mailing list by registering your name, email and zip code. That's it. (I have nothing to do with the picking the winner - I'm only teaching :) My focus in this workshop is all about portraits. The contest closes tomorrow, April 1st. Read more about it here or feel free to go directly to the Image X website to enter. Good luck!

After my post about Senator Obama, I got an interesting phone call from my friend, client, and fellow photographer Katie Williams. It turns out that her mother, Hallie, has been following the blog since I photographed her grandchildren. She had the thought that she would love to see similar images of Senator Clinton. As a passionate supporter and friend of Hillary Clinton, she wanted to see how she could help me get the type of access I would need to achieve more personal images of her. There are now two big articles being written with heavy use of this photography - the first one is for Endurance Magazine (150,000 readers in NC, now a big state in play), as well as the 30 sister publications who will be running the editorial and photography across the Americas. The other piece is a 5-page spread I'm putting together for Rangefinder Magazine's May issue. So, within 24 hours, there were a flurry of emails being exchanged between Hallie and Hillary's campaign manager and press secretary. Nothing was decided about what kind of access I would get, but all was looking quite good going into the Senator's visit to North Carolina. At the event, most cell phones were dropping coverage, and I lost a couple of calls from Jamie, who was traveling in with the campaign. Once she arrived, it was decided that I could get some time to photograph the Senator after her speech. A HUGE thank you to Hallie for her quite successful efforts in making this happen and to Carly and Jamie for coordinating the shoot on the ground. I know that everything is timed to the second on a day when the Senator is giving 3 speeches across the state, and I really appreciated the extra effort that went into making this happen! Some cool images from her talk in Raleigh...

The Senator speaking to her economic policies...

I really like the feel of this one...

Afterwards, chatting with supporters...

Senator Clinton being interviewed by CBS...

I have a great many more images, we're holding some for showcasing in the magazines, but quite a day overall!! One interesting note - after shaking hands with the Senator and relaying the fact that I don't know one woman who isn't proud of what she has accomplished, regardless of their varying political leanings, she pumped her arms up in the air and said, "yeah!". Was a side of her I hadn't seen before, a side that those who know her well speak about fondly... P.S. And thanks, too, to "Aunt Melissa" (my great friend Melissa Locklear who my kids still think is my sister) for coordinating a cascading flow of childcare when we were about 3 hours later returning from the shoot, as we were waiting for things to get lined up. This crazy week happened to coincide with Spring Break! And, Leslie Davis, a huge thanks to you, too, for watching 5 kids twice in one week :) :) :)

I will definitely post more portraits and imagery of Senator Hillary Clinton from her visit to North Carolina today - got some amazing access and beautiful images!! I also had a fantastic opportunity to get some one on one time with the Senator, and I wanted to at least quickly show one of the portraits from our session. In my next post, I will share a lot more details about how these portraits came about - it's such a cool story...

I so appreciate the very cool feedback and emails I received after posting some photographs of Barack Obama (and Annie!!). One of the things I was asked most often was if I could post some more images. I will definitely do so later, after the magazine goes to press, but I do have clearance to post this one more, definitely one of my favorites...

I am gearing up to photograph Senator Hillary Clinton next, this Thursday. Will circle back after that - we're working on a different type of shoot..... And not leaving John McCain out, we're still in talks to make that happen. And I am doing a piece for Rangefinder Magazine about some additional details on these sessions, *should be* out in the May issue.