Thorsten Overgaard

Jesus, it’s just us.

It’s a perfect scene; I even have the guts to think the other photographer is local so I will be solo with this on international wire. The local photographer will only cover local papers. This is not only unique; I will also make it the most aesthetic picture the world has ever seen of an ex-president drinking coffee.

It’s not that I’m ignorant as to how much money a solo picture of Clinton drinking coffee can earn, or the possibility a picture that could potentially be historic will actually be happening here within the next few minutes.

Mainly I’m already speculating how to earn me the right to the greatest shot ever taken of Clinton drinking coffee.

My ideal of presidential photography is in the great Leica tradition of the White House photographers, and Robert McNeely is right up there amongst the best with his book The Clinton Years.

Here’s a shot of Robert McNeely from his book. It’s Clinton and Powell having a crack about some comics.

I know, the photo of Britney without underwear probably has been seen by more people in one day than the entire lifelong production of Robert McNeely.

But it’s the quality of the communication that counts. His pictures have created a unique impact that is worth much more.

There’s this policy about only taking pictures that will do good things for the people. I read that in Ron the Photographer and it’s kind of a great policy in guiding you as to which photos to take and which not when you are around people of fame.

If it’s not doing anything good for them, don’t do it.

Anyway.

It’s along the lines of Robert McNeely I’m thinking.

I am alone with Clinton in a coffee bar.

Except there’s now four Secret Service guys inside too as well.

They look at me.

Clinton tell them “It’s all right”

I already plan angles, light and everything for Clinton and I doing one-on-one photos of him enjoying a peaceful coffee while the crowd is waiting outside.

Coffee is good.

While I plan, I shoot what happens. Rather automatically. I haven’t made a plan yet. I haven’t “seen” the shot I will be doing. Yet.

But we will be having a great time. He might recognize, probably even enjoy, the silence of the Leica snapping perfect frames.

If there’s a camera that has been around, and continues to be around, presidents in the White House, it’s Leica. All White House photographers use Leica.

A Leica must be like a family member to him. He will enjoy being alone with it.

Now.

The Secret Service guy say something which translates to “Get the fuck out now”

Clinton repeats, “It’s all right” with his distinctive hoarse voice, in an almost tired way. It reminds me of Godfather.

I tell the Secret Service guy “It’s all right. He said so”

He repeats his “please, out” both oral and with a hand. He’s both in my ears and in my viewfinder and it’s really not him I want to see.

Ah, fuck.

I’m a decent guy, I’m not a paparazzi or something. They say go, I go.

Can’t request Clinton to back it up in the middle of a coffee bar. I get out. Maybe I got something anyways.

This thing had already come too far. No chance I could have changed the mind of Secret Service at that point.

I see, I retroperspective I should have gone hang back. I should have gone to the counter and just hang there and wait peacefully for the scene to fall to rest. I should have done that from the first instant I entered the place.

Order an espresso, be worthy, get into the ‘I belong in this scene’ character. Instead of moving around.

If there’s one thing that consistently work, it’s not being pushy but just be in the corner like a fly on the wall. Not doing anything but wait to get some peaceful time with the subject.

What then usually happens is that an assistant or the celebrity approaches you to hear what you want to do. Because you look like one who has a special appointment to be there.

Which is then what you might get.

Either that, or they fear you are a weirdo, which means you are escorted out.

I noticed earlier this day, at the hotel, that Cinton’s personal staff was almost comfortable about me being there as long as I just had a small Leica over the shoulder.

The instant I picked up a camera bag, she got an expression of panic in her eyes.

Photographers with large cameras has unfortunately become synonymous with danger and unfriendly exposure.

Being inside a coffee bar with Clinton with four Secret Service guys I definitely fell into that category of photographers.

I should have hung back, asked for an espresso. I really should.
Coffee is good.

Anyway.

I’m out at the packed parking lot in front of the coffee bar and Oliver and I decide to hit swim through the masses and hit the road to the venue where Clinton will be speaking.

This got to be the last stop before he jumps in the car and head to the venue. He’s already late as it is.

He’s driving a Volvo, not a limo. As one security guy reportedly said at the airport: “I see the limo has shrunken into a Volvo”

The venue, Nordens Hus, is covered in security. All the place is taped in with “police – don’t enter” and a guard for every 10 meters around the building.

A Secret Service guard enters the press bus to check us out. He seem to be comforted by out smiling faces. We’re on a field trip and it’s like kindergarten. We look happy and friendly.

We’re let inside.

Me and a local photographer shooting for all the local medias are the only two photographers allowed during the actual speech. No others are allowed to bring cameras, recorders, laptops or even mobile phones into the venue.

Maybe because of the scarce amount of equipment allowed in general, I decided to bring my full camera bag with five cameras and monopod. Just to be different. I’m only using one.

A hilarious scene plays out as we try to enter the venue. We have to wait behind the line because the local police lady has been told no one was allowed to enter or exit the building after a certain time. Which was 90 minutes ago.

So we spend 10 minutes or so before the head of it all comes by, laughs about it all and then read the names of those allowed in.

The chance of a great Clinton shot inside is remote. So many pictures of Clinton delivering a speech exist and this will be another one in that series.

I shall be relaxing because I’m anyway not in need of any shots from the actual speech. Our story is about the stuff outside, before and after the speech.

I catch the audience as they enter the hall after the VIP reception which was the buffer Clinton used to visit Torshavn and have coffee.

The VIP’s might have felt lonely doing a reception without him.

Actutally, he went to another shop after the coffee bar and bought two blouses from Gudrun & Gudrun in dark grey knitwear, for his wife and daughter. I visited the shop the day after and got this photo of Gudrun knitting blouses:

Gudrun & Gudrun is super-trendy, some have probably already heard about them. Or will be hearing about them soon. Clinton bought two scarf’s like the ones hanging left in the picture as well. Those go well to the dark grey knitwear (he’s got taste, you got to admit).

It’s a small audience of 500 people and makes up the who’s who of the Faroe Islands though I have no idea who’s who.

I try to listen while I photograph. Oliver has noticed an old man in seat 8C who has fallen asleep. A quite expensive seat to take a nap in. It’s too dark to get a photo of it.

But there’s an interesting detail which most of my photos center around. The spotlight creates a shadow of Clinton on the red carpet on the side wall. I use the monopod to take similar angle shots at 1/1 second, ¼ and 1/8 second and later managed to put together one shot:

You can click it to see it larger. I like this composition with the audience rather than Clinton alone. And the two Secret Service guys by the wall.

Can you feel it?

It’s yet another Clinton moment. For 500 persons at one time. Different, requiring VIP seating and more well planned months in advance than him suddenly standing next to you on a parking lot or the streets of Torshavn.

Or in a coffee bar.

Those speeches ‘a bit artificial. You can tell some audiences feel they bought Clinton to come speak for them. And feel mighty about it.

But a Clinton moment it is. Though I like he unscheduled ones better.

I got literarily 759 shots, variations, of this. Doing the same photo for one hour.

Hmm.

I exit the place 10 minutes before Clinton is done with the question and answer period after his speech.

I want to be outside when he leaves. Also I need to know if he leaves for the airport or the hotel. If he leaves for the hotel, that would mean he will be staying and play golf or something. Which would be a completely new ballgame in terms of photo opportunities. And why not?

So I miss to see the latter part of the question and answer period with the faroe journalist and princess-looking Tórun Ellingsgaard who deliberately does not take notice of the Secret Service guys giving stronger and stronger hand-signs to get done with the interview. She continued 20 minutes or so over time. The faroe audience saw it and thought it was hilarious. They like to break rules. A bit like the Danes and the Irish for whom authorities are some you have to play mouse and cat with.

She later told me, Clinton had told her, “I have plenty of time. I don’t have to be anywhere.”

So in a way Clinton and her had agreed to run the show themselves. For 20 minutes extra.

I like that guy.

Outside I check the back entrance which he will be using but don’t like the dull look of it. So I find a nice spot on the corner by the exit to the main road. The cars will have to pass that corner and turn right. So if I place me on that spot, I will be elevated to above the windows of the cars, being nothing more than 2 meters from Clinton.

That’s a good plan.

I sit and wait. My knee hurt a bit. I have my Leica SLR with the 80mm on my left shoulder, which I want to use to photograph the caravan of cars as they approach the exit. I can probably shoot 6-8 pictures of them approaching before I have to grab the next camera:

Around my neck I have my Leica M4 with the 21mm Super-Angulon with which I want to take a 90° wideangle photo of the whole scenery, hopefully with Clinton in the center, and visible.

On my right shoulder I have a digital Leica in case there would be time to shoot with that as well.

It’ very much the way I like to work. The main shot has to be taken with an old manual camera without lightmeter and motordrive. Thus only one shot will be possible.

But what a shot.

It’s risky but it’s a great game.

Either it all works out with a razor-sharp slide film scan, a 90° wideangle shot with Clinton in the middle, with all sorts of razor-sharp details as security guys, fans and press standing on the street, security guys in the car behind Clinton, probably pointing towards me, thinking “what is that guy doing there – is that a Luger he is pointing?” I’m sitting so close to where the car will have to slow down to turn the corner, I could get a book signed.

It has the potential of becoming a great shot. And made with a camera from 1974 that’s build to resist Veitnam war, not a modern dSLR built to shoot 10 frames a second of an ex-president passing by.

I like disadvantage. It’s fun.

I also like not knowing immediately right after, if I got it or not. I particularly like that while sitting there waiting, the sun comes out! I have it from behind and usually prefer shooting against the light (another disadvantage). In this case the sun is perfect because it lit the scenery and bring out nice colors. Suits the scene.

As the cars finally approach, I see the sun is bright enough to beam through the tinted glass of the cars and lit up the faces of the people inside.

I use an external 21mm viewfinder on top of the Leica to frame. I see Clinton approaching; he’s on the phone in a big black telephone. He waves his hand to the audience in a sort of distracted way. He’s concentrating on the phone call.

Click.

I got it.

I don’t know. The beauty of this disadvantage is that it will take me days to get the slide film to a lab and get it back again.

There’s only one frame. No time for more than one click.

The post between the doors of the Volvo might have been in the middle of his face. Maybe the 1/125 was too slow. Maybe he was looking straight into the camera the instant I pressed the shutter.

Don’t know. I can just wait and hope.

In the bus I tell Oliver all this while he’s looking at the newspaper they made locally in English, with the enthusiastic “Welcome President Clinton” on the front page. I tell him about the potential photo I’m hoping for.

One with Clinton in the center, lots of sharp details of security people, police dogs, fans, flags, the wind and the sun. Every detail will represent its own moment for a person, all over the photo, from left to right.

But I also tell him the chances that I actually hit the shutter the right instant … well, they’re remote.

But what a picture it will be if I have.

Oliver understands this. He thinks alike, but in words.

Moments and details.

After having thought about it for some hours, Oliver comes back to me, asking “This picture. What if you didn’t get it?”

“Will you be talking about this picture you never got, the rest of your life?”

Hell no. That’s the whole idea of the disadvantage. You might get it, and then it’s great. But if not, thats just statistics.

Like lottery.

Anyone can take a wideangle photo with a dSLR that will be ok. But to take a perfect 21 mm wideangle shot on slide film with a manual camera – see, that’s something.

Or take portraits of Clinton on the street with 80mm f/1.4 on slide film, well knowing the 80mm f/1.4 has so narrow sharpness that half the shots will be out of focus.

But the ones in focus, circumstances being right… that’s photography!

Anyway, a week later I get the slide films back from the lab. The first frame I check is of course that one.

And here’s what I see.

It’s a lousy photo, except that you see the potential.

1/125 was clearly too slow. I almost knew that when they had passed, but then again they had to slow down but I couldn’t remember how much. Could have worked.

But what really ruined the photo is how people in it look. There’s too few of them and they are not paying attention. They are already relaxing. The security guys behind the car in the picture is clearly discussing where the coffee will be served when Clinton has gone, and if there will be one or two kinds of cheese to the bred. And the police by the entrance has turned their backs.

Some said later he was on the phone with Hillary. I said I had a feeling he was on the phone with a statesman. It looked like a statesman the way he was on the phone.

Clinton went straight to the airport. It was over.


We head back to our hotel and Oliver is now using his notebook to get the facts straight. We look at the Harley and what Clinton wrote exactly. He wrote his name and the date, October 1, 2007.

The owner comes by. We ask what pen was used, how he plan to preserve it on the bike, what the price of the bike is and stuff.

They guys hearth is still beating overtime. He looks very determined. He has a look of a guy with the only Harley in the world, Clinton has signed.

But what to do with it, how do you celebrate having a Clinton signature on your Harley..?

We pass by Clinton’s suite. They are cleaning up and preparing it for another visitor. There’s 20 Coca Colas lined up, 20 bottles of water and 20 coffee cups. That is standard equipment in this suite, the maid tells me. Next door is the bedroom, it has a bathroom with Jacuzzi, framed in tinted glass walls so you can look through it from the bed and vice versa.

It’s a funny feeling being in his suite. So significant two hours ago, now left by Clinton, his staff and the Secret Service.

It’s a mixed feeling of invading his private sphere, yet a unique opportunity we just couldn’t resist doing a candid photo in:

Later we head downtown to run through the route again to get the details straight. I’m the kind of guy who would revisit a place to learn how things could be done differently another time in a similar situation.

With Oliver it’s a thing to do because he’s into details. The color of the wooden window frames on a certain house, the name of the coffee house, the number of parking spaces.

What kind of threes are those, he asks me, pointing at the oak threes in front of the bookstore, Clinton visited.

Stuff like that.

Then we head back to he venue where they are editing the video. They are doing a clip for each television station that wants one. They are allowed a maximum of 23 seconds of the speech. So in a van bahind the venue they are editing right now. Oliver needs to get a certain part of the speech noted correct.

There’s four or five security guys staying overnight at our hotel, but aside for that, it’s over.

Next morning I find one of the security guys looking out the window in the restaurant. He’s gone astray in the view of Torshavn:

Oliver left early as he just got a son three weeks ago.

I’ll be staying for another four days to do photos of the Faroe Islands.

The story on Clinton will later appear in Samvirke, a Danish magazine being read by about a million people.

I might get back to Faroe Islands in the coming blogs. It’s a remarkable place, even when there are no presidents around. For example I met this guy who’s the 17th generation farmer on the family farm. That is a lot of time and the fathers told their sons the stories from the past, who then told their sons those stories.

Jóhannes Patursson can speak for hours about it, about the kings, fishers and sailors in year 700, year 1100 and year 1896, as if it was someone telling you about what happened in the mall last week.

Also, there is the island of Nólsoy where only 260 people live and which is like traveling 20 years back in time, though only a 10 minutes sail trip from Torshavn.

This is their post office:

Any questions?