It was 2008. Some handsome man from Chicago was running for President of the United States. His most admirable quality, still, is he speaks in complete sentences. I digress… It was 2008 and I got a call from Jim Anderson, a wonderful journalist at Denver’s Associated Press office. He told me David Ake, then AP’s vice president of North America, wanted two of my best photojournalism students to help shoot the Democratic National Convention during that summer. “Only two?,” I asked. Yep… AP was going to get two of the best college shooters from 15 of the nation’s top journalism schools to help shoot the convention. Jim told me the request had come from Ake. I knew David from my days with AP in San Francisco in the early 70s. So…

I called David. We caught up and then I said, “You are not using any other shooters from any other colleges. I have 30 of the best student-photojournalists and you will use them.” To my amazement, David said, and I misquote, “Okay.”

Thirty of my shooters from the university where I was Chair of Journalism and Mass Communication worked the week before, the week during, and the week after the convention. And it was paid. Quite nicely, I might add.

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I was a senior at San Jose State and stayed that extra year to get a degree in photojournalism. I was also serving an internship at The Associated Press in San Francisco. It was a Friday to Monday morning gig. I had a cot set up in the darkroom so I did not have to go back and forth from San Jose to The City.

I came up to San Francisco a day early and was at Fisherman’s Wharf when I saw this moment. I shot this on Ektachrome 100 because I was taking a color photography class as an elective and we processed our own slide film (E-6).

This moment grabbed me because of the restaurant owner in his white apron and the white fire hydrant. I framed up and waited for THE moment between the guitar player and the facial expression of the mime in the middle of the group of mimes. I just love this image.

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