President Obama – A State Visit
On Tuesday this week I decided to take a trip to Downing Street to cover the arrival of Barack Obama to number 10. The American President was on an official state visit to the UK. He and his wife, the first lady Michelle were staying at Buckingham Palace as guests of the Queen for three days and during their time here the President was to come to Downing Street on two occasions and I was determined to be there for at least one of them.
I arrived well before most of the other press, but as the morning rolled into the afternoon preparations were being made for the big moment. The Prime Minister and his wife would meet the President and First Lady in the street in front of the waiting Press Pack. The red carpet was laid down and the door was cleaned. Security was obviously tight with a lock down due 2 hours before the Presidents motorcade was due in through the black Iron gates.
Heightened security was evident all around the visit, on the roof of the foreign office police snipers were keeping a watchful eye on proceedings
The waiting press kept themselves busy, setting up their remotely controlled cameras in front of the barriers, or moving their ladders into position so that we could all get a clean shot of the front door
Anjem Choudary and around 150 or so British Muslims staged a protest outside Downing Street demonstrating their views on the visit of the President and that Barack Obama was one of many Western Leaders and Politicians that are wanted under Sharia Law for crimes against Muslims
Barack Obama’s convoy rocked up as expected and the Camerons came out to meet them. The presidential car (of which there were two) was huge and had armoured plating that made the doors look about 8 inches thick. The two couples met by the car and made their way to the step for the Photographs before retreating inside for no longer than about 20 minutes. The Prime Minister and President then left in “The Beast’ for an official engagement and a game of “Wiff-Waff” at a local London school.
It was quite a difficult event to photograph many ways, and although all of the events are unfolding right in front of your eyes it is hard to get a good sequence of shots that have enough variety to tell the story of the day. You are in one static position at the very top of your step ladder throughout, surrounded by other snappers all in competition with each other and you don’t have a lot of time to react if things were to go wrong with your gear.
Through my shots one thing I wanted to get was a clean picture of the President on his own and I just about managed it with this one
All in all, not a bad days work. This was only the third ever state visit by a US president to the United Kingdom and I find it’s a real privilege to have the opportunity to photograph historical events such as these.