North Jersey Exposure: Election Day 2008

By Dave Adornato

Eighteen hours. Thirty-five pslips. Five videos. Six races. Fourteen candidates. We covered it all. And we did it for two dailies and a website that was hungry, requiring constant updates. Web hits for Tuesday and Wednesday were record breaking - 307,225 for Tuesday and 360,866 for Wednesday.

Everyone worked hard on Election day. But the unsung heroes of the day were the day-side guys. They were tasked with priming the websites’ “pump.”

Carmine, Liz, Tariq, and Sarah, between them, had to make stills and video of at 15 separate polling places as well as a special trip to cover breakfast at a local diner with Lautenberg and Pascrell. They had to get the footage back to Hackensack immediately after shooting for an edit by Tom Franklin. All between 6 a.m.-10 a.m. These images, still and moving, were going to set the tone for the day on the web site. It was absolutely exciting to see these videos minutes not hours after they were made. I believe our staff made the local election real and compelling for people starting their day. Who knows, it may have inspired some to get out and vote. Oh, and by-the-way, Pedota who had previously scheduled vacation, came in to photograph stills and video of Dick Zimmer. And Liz shot a soccer game too.

Tariq’s video of Lautenberg and Pascrell having breakfast:
http://www.northjersey.com/multimedia/video/33833004.html

Pedota’s video of Dick Zimmer Voting:
http://www.northjersey.com/multimedia/video/33838494.html

Video of early morning voting a combined effort:
http://www.northjersey.com/multimedia/video/33799874.html

Photo by Liz Lara

Photo by Carmine Galasso.

Photo by Carmine Galasso

Night side guys:

The story of the night was Obama and the history voters would be making by electing him the first African-American President. Kevin, Amy, Dave, Leslie, Mike, Don, Tyson and freelancer Aldo Martinez, were sent to various locations around the region to document the local reaction to this momentous occasion.

Photo by Aldo Martinez

Don made this image, arguably, a more dramatic image than the one that ran; see below.

Photo by Don Smith

Photo by Amy Newman

Photo by Kevin Wexler

Photo by Leslie Barbaro

Video would play an important part in the photographer’s evening too. Dave made a moving piece at Mount Olive Baptist Church where a giant screen project images of Barack Obama victory speech.
http://www.northjersey.com/multimedia/video/33828009.html

In the interest of producing a well-rounded story Tyson went to the Bergen county republican HQ to get the mood there. As another photographer noted to me, in conversation Wednesday, you could tell a still photographer made this video, because of the exceptionally good compositions. The ambient sound really added to mood the video was capturing too.
http://www.northjersey.com/multimedia/video/33828244.html

Mike Karas was in New Brunswick documenting Lautenberg’s victory. Jon noted, the following day, that Mike sent photos much faster than his Associated Press colleague and his images were of a better quality too.