Last weekend, I had the opportunity to be an official event photographer for TheCall DC, a 12 hour prayer meeting that took place on the National Mall in Washington DC. The experience was frankly quite overwhelming. There were photo opportunities everywhere, and I couldn’t be in more than one place at a time, and I had to pace myself so I could make it to evening. At times, I felt like a kid in a candy shop – so many yummy choices! Whatever I chose, I knew would be good. :-D
The weather was perfect – mid 80s and low humidity. That’s pretty close to a miracle for Washington DC in the summer. I had braced myself for a day of sweat and near heat exhaustion and was pleasantly surprised!
The day of TheCall, I shot just under 3000 photos. I’ve narrowed them down to 648 that I will give to the organization for their use. I’ll be posting more shots on my Flickr account next week, if you’re interested in seeing more from the event, as well as the pre-call conference.
So here are some of my favorite photos from the day.
Mike Huckabee attended the event and the conference that took place beforehand. I kept a professional distance, but now wish I had introduced myself and said “hi”. He was extremely nice, humble and very personable.
The view from on the stage. They estimated around 50,000 attended.
Michael W. Smith has always been a favorite musician of mine. It was a treat to photograph him!
MWS has this amazingly talented violinist, who took time to chat with us in our media office later on in the day. She is super sweet!
They had communion as a part of the event. These cups were so cool – the wafer was in the pull-off lid, and the juice in the cup part.
This is Heather Clark. I had just started listening to her music before I left for DC, now I can’t stop!
Yummy sunset back light.
Stage at dusk.
The crowd just never seemed to get tired! By this time, I was shooting at shorter and shorter intervals. My feet were throbbing!
The Capitol building made a nice back drop all day long.
Had to play a little with my 50mm 1.2.
This is the leader of the event – Lou Engle. He’s like the energizer bunny of prayer – he keeps going and going and going…
At the very end, the kids all come on stage and dance like crazy. This is one of Lou’s kids!
My husband Tracy helped with Security during the event. He got to sit in an air conditioned Emergency Response trailer and relay messages from TheCall Security to the police and rescue people. It was pretty interesting for him!
Exhausted, we packed up and rode the Metro to our car. I was so tired, I literally laid down on the floor at the Metro station. It took until Thursday of this week for my feet to stop hurting and for the “tired” to go away. But it was TOTALLY WORTH IT! We had a great time and were able to be a part of a really powerful event.
