Precious moments, originally uploaded by Nashua Telegraph.

I stopped by St. John Neumann Church in Merrimack this morning in search
of a voter photo for Wednesday’s local front in The Telegraph. If that
sounds exciting to you, please stop reading, put down whatever you are
doing, and proceed to the nearest photojournalism school. There is news
running in your blood!

I’ve been working full-time as a newspaper photographer for 22 years,
and have seen plenty of voting booths in my time. Believe me, they
haven’t changed. At least not on the outside. The ballots are different
and the machines that count them improve with time. But the voting
process remains much the same.

To a veteran photojournalist, being sent to the polls is kind of like an
ice cream scooper dishing up one more cone for the summer crowd. You can
practically do it with your eyes closed! Picture this. A resident walks
into a polling place and picks up a piece of paper, hides inside a booth
to fill it out, then drops it in a box on their way out. Now if I was
working in Iraq, I would be toting body armor along with my Canon
cameras. People would be rejoicing as they left, happy to be alive and
free to vote. That’s not the case here in the United States. People are
calm here, possibly thinking about where they are going to stop for
their next cup of java. It’s a routine for us. We take too many things
for granted here in the U.S.A.

So what is there to look forward to as I enter the polls in search of a
fresh picture, never seen before, to grace the pages of our newspaper?
For me it’s all about the people there, and their personalities. Facial
expressions and body language can tell a story much faster than words.

Voters were sparse this morning at the church, and it was very quiet
there. A half-dozen men congregated outside, holding signs and shaking
hands. But inside, the election workers didn’t have to do much running
to keep up with today’s crowd. I photographed Roni McCall dropping off
her ballot in the collection box, and looked for something else
out-of-the-ordinary. The photo of her will work fine, but I have taken
similar pictures before.

As I glanced around the room, I noticed a young girl kneeling underneath
the voting booths. The woman with her was inside. Four-year-old Layla
Terwilliger had found her perch for the next several minutes as the
voting took place. She saw my camera as I slowly walked over and knelt
down next to the booth. I set the camera on the floor. Rather than
interrupt the woman and spoil a precious moment, I began taking
pictures. Layla seemed curious, but not afraid of the man with the big
camera on the floor outside the booth. The frames blazed away for only a
few seconds before the woman exited the booth. I immediately identified
myself and asked for their names. After showing Layla a picture of
herself in the back of the camera, they dropped off the ballot and
headed out the door with smiles on their faces. I showed the picture in
the back of the camera to a pair of election workers nearby, who smiled
and agreed the precious moment was captured.

A few minutes later as I changed my camera settings outside to shoot the
sign holders, a car pulled up near me and the driver got out. “Oh no,” I
thought as the woman walked toward me. My blood pressure started to
rise. Was she going to tell me not to use the pictures I had taken of
Layla? Absolutely not. She stopped to tell me I had made a young girl’s
day. Layla seemed down before they went in to vote, and now she was
thrilled that a photographer had taken her picture!

So what do I look forward to when going out to routine assignments?
Meeting people, and maybe making their day!