As some of you may know, Ohio is what people call a swing state or more sensationally: a battleground state. Basically, the people who live here don’t consistantly vote for one party. We have undecided voters… we flip-flop. Politicians, being crafty, know this. McCain, Obama, Palin, and many other movers/shakers have visited Cincinnati. But here’s the intriging thing, very few of them are ever really prepared for the press. It’s a little sad. If I show up to an event and no one can tell me where the press gate is OR if there even is one. That’s a bad sign. The photos below are from an Obama visit last week. Huge crowd, amazing spirit, good opening speakers, pretty good parking, no press gate. It took me over 30 mins to get in. The secret service guys were nice, but also uninformed as to how to deal with the press. Get it together, politicians. Your here to make an impression, that means using us, be a little accomodating. Also check out the new links to the right, I added one of my new favorite radio shows and new photographer, Amber Sigman. Check out her Prophet series… stellar.

One of my first duties at CityBeat was covering the MidPoint Music Festival. There were around 130 bands that turned out for the three-day rock/punk/hip-hop/new wave/electronica/blue grass/folk jam fest. One of the best shows that I saw was Coltrane Motion. They played twice during the festival and were great both times. I have a hard time describing their music, but long exposure first curtain flash technique I used for these pictures goes with their style pretty well. A little trippy, a little hard read, but pretty intriging (at least I hope the photos are intriguing).