# Republican National Convention 2008 St. Paul, MN ***18 photos***



## MarcusM (Sep 5, 2008)

Well, I haven't posted for a while, just been so busy. I had wanted to get down to the RNC to do some people watching and get some shots of the protests and all that seeing as I live just over a mile from all the action, but my schedule has just been so hectic that I almost didn't make it at all but finally told the wife that I've gotta get down there, so I went on the last night around 9:30 right as McCain's speech was wrapping up.

I know politics aren't allowed so I will try to keep this as apolitical as possible, although some of the shots may have some political references just as descriptions and photojournalistic purposes.

I know these shots aren't spectacular, being as I don't really have the proper gear for this type of shooting, but I still thought people would be interested in getting somewhat of an idea as to the goings on down in my little corner of the world. Not looking for a critique, but feel free to comment.

Right when I got downtown I figured I would park my car in the first spot I found which happened to be about 8 blocks away from where the RNC was taking place. Right away I saw cops everywhere, posted on almost every block on my way there.

It was actually quite tame, I was surprised to see. I thought there would be more protesters but there were just a few intermingled with the crowd. I guess I missed most of the festivities earlier that day and week.

1. This first shot is the Landmark Center, an old building in downtown St. Paul, right by Rice Park where MSNBC was set up, near the Excel Energy Center where the convention was. I think there was a big Republican bash there after the convention. This was about as close as you could get to the actual convention as they had erected metal fences all around the perimeter, about a block away.






2. random cops, looking like they've had a long night:





3. Random crowd shot at park:





4. Police presence across from park:





5.police in riot gear marching to park for show of force





6. One of the minor little tiffs I encountered:





7. Another show of force:





8.





9. random demonstrator:





10. Protesters:





11. Can you find Chris Matthews?





12: Repubs coming out of convention:





13: Random convention goers:





14: Protestor heckling the Repubs as they walked out of the convention center, calling them necrophiliacs.





15: This guy wasn't too keen on the necrophiliacs comments:





16: I thought they might go at it, the guy in the red white and blue shirt was making threatining comments but the heckler wasn't backing down:





17: Randoms





18: How could I pass this guy up?


----------



## Heck (Sep 6, 2008)

Pretty cool.. Thanks for the tour and the comments for each photo..


----------



## polymoog (Sep 6, 2008)

Nice colours in these pics, cool how it is all lit up, like Christmas!

The police look like they mean business, reminds me of the Labour Day demonstrations we have here in Sweden on the 1st May, the police are out in force then as well, both on the ground and on horseback


----------



## Alpha (Sep 6, 2008)

Nice job editing out the human sacrifice.


----------



## MarcusM (Sep 6, 2008)

Alpha said:


> Nice job editing out the human sacrifice.



I really don't understand what you mean by this, care to explain?


----------



## Alpha (Sep 6, 2008)

The explanation would be impermissibly political, per forum rules.


----------



## MarcusM (Sep 6, 2008)

Alpha said:


> The explanation would be impermissibly political, per forum rules.



Ok, well, I didn't edit out anything. These shots are pretty much straight out of camera, and what I captured was a pretty good representation of what happened that night. There was not much action when I was there as compared to what went on the rest of the week prior.

Feel free to PM me if you get an itch to explain your comment because I really have no idea what you meant, although I am curious.


----------



## AverageJoe (Sep 6, 2008)

Nice shots, of course I had to move that weekend which pretty much tied me up from going down there and getting some shots.  I love the cop with "P203" on his helmet... he's got his hand in his belt...

In a side note I feel bad for all the cops who had to deal with all this plus the "business as usual" trouble that the deal with.

Anyway, great work all around.


----------



## MarcusM (Sep 6, 2008)

thanks for the comments guys.

haha @ 





> I love the cop with "P203" on his helmet... he's got his hand in his belt...



...I just noticed something...check out the last cop on the right-hand side on shot #8...is that P203's twin brother????


----------



## D3sh1 (Sep 7, 2008)

great photos ,
those police guys looks like baseball players haha


----------



## Renair (Sep 7, 2008)

Good work Marcus, sometimes the best shots that tell the story are taken outside of a political conference rather then inside.  You seem to have done the right thing and shot both sides, for and against McCain rather then taking sides.   That's the work of a true journalist.  You dont take sides, you just tell the story.....


----------



## LaFoto (Sep 7, 2008)

Marcus, I must say that your photos speak more than the TV docus we get shown on our TV news or programmes on "What happens abroad?" (longer reports than there's time for in the regular news programmes). Well done. When they mentioned "St. Paul" as the venue for the convention, I somehow knew that I "know" someone there, but at the time it didn't occur to me that it is you who I "know" (kind of).


----------



## Dmitri (Sep 7, 2008)

Nice shots. As for picture #8, whats with the uniforms? They look like Spaceballs.

:thumbsup:


----------



## MarcusM (Sep 8, 2008)

D3sh1 said:


> great photos ,
> those police guys looks like baseball players haha



yea, I see what you're saying. Thanks for the comment.



Renair said:


> Good work Marcus, sometimes the best shots that tell the story are taken outside of a political conference rather then inside.  You seem to have done the right thing and shot both sides, for and against McCain rather then taking sides.   That's the work of a true journalist.  You dont take sides, you just tell the story.....



Thank you for the nice comments. Yes, I would much rather have taken shots outside the convention than inside. I did try to capture an accurate representation of what took place there.



LaFoto said:


> Marcus, I must say that your photos speak more than the TV docus we get shown on our TV news or programmes on "What happens abroad?" (longer reports than there's time for in the regular news programmes). Well done. When they mentioned "St. Paul" as the venue for the convention, I somehow knew that I "know" someone there, but at the time it didn't occur to me that it is you who I "know" (kind of).



hehe...thanks Lafoto. Yea, amazing how small the world is now, isn't it?



Dmitri said:


> Nice shots. As for picture #8, whats with the uniforms? They look like Spaceballs.
> 
> :thumbsup:



That's hilarious, they do don't they?


----------



## Puscas (Sep 9, 2008)

ah nice. I was expecting more pics from the RNC. I was there too btw, we could have had a mini-TPF meet up...;-)






pascal


----------



## MarcusM (Sep 9, 2008)

Puscas said:


> ah nice. I was expecting more pics from the RNC. I was there too btw, we could have had a mini-TPF meet up...;-)
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Which days were you here? I wish I would have known...I have been so busy so I hadn't gone on TPF much at all in the past couple weeks, so if you mentioned it I just missed it.

Did you catch any of the crazy protests?  It sounds to me like there are some serious questions as to how the police reacted...arresting journalists and unnecessarily roughing them up and the like.

I'm also surprised there were hardly any shots from the RNC...I only found one other thread besides mine. Guess there's not too many shooters from this area on TPF.


----------



## Village Idiot (Sep 9, 2008)

You should look into purchasing a CTO gel if you're going to be shooting with a flash and getting ambient light from the street lights at night.


----------



## MarcusM (Sep 9, 2008)

Thanks for the tip VI, I had to look them up as I hadn't heard of them.


----------



## Puscas (Sep 9, 2008)

MarcusM said:


> Which days were you here? I wish I would have known...I have been so busy so I hadn't gone on TPF much at all in the past couple weeks, so if you mentioned it I just missed it.
> 
> Did you catch any of the crazy protests?  It sounds to me like there are some serious questions as to how the police reacted...arresting journalists and unnecessarily roughing them up and the like.
> 
> I'm also surprised there were hardly any shots from the RNC...I only found one other thread besides mine. Guess there's not too many shooters from this area on TPF.



I was mostly inside; day 3 and 4. Saw a few protesters inside as well, but they were too far away to get a good picture, otherwise I would have posted them in this section too. 
I believe the big protest rallies were held far away from the XCel center, too bad I couldn't be there; would have loved to take pictures there. 







pascal


----------

