The DNC Floor Got Real Tense When Instructed Not to Move So a 110-Year-Old Camera Could Capture a Photo

Why did we, the attendees of the 2024 Democratic National Convention, need to have a panoramic photo taken with a 110-year-old camera? Your guess is as good as mine!

By Lauren Tousignant  |  August 21, 2024 | 2:37am
Photo: Getty Images Politics Democratic National Convention
The DNC Floor Got Real Tense When Instructed Not to Move So a 110-Year-Old Camera Could Capture a Photo

CHICAGO — I was stressed as hell Sunday night when I learned at 8 p.m. that my early morning flight to Chicago was canceled. Shockingly, that stress was nothing compared to the stress I felt on the DNC floor Tuesday night when a photographer asked the entire convention center to stay completely still so he could use a 110-year-old camera to take a panoramic photo. Why did we, the attendees of the 2024 Democratic National Convention, need to have our photo taken with a 110-year-old camera? Your guess is as good as mine!

I tried to take a video of the scene, but my hand was hanging at my side and the vibes got so tense that I was too scared to bend my arm. The photographer, Abbas Shirmohammadi, kept begging the thousands of attendees to stop moving since even the slightest movement could blur a piece of the photo. “Do. Not. Move,” he said slowly at one point as if he was speaking to a room of first graders. “It’s an extremely sensitive camera.”

At another point, Shirmohammadi—who was standing on a raised platform in the middle of the arena—managed to spot one woman who was…not standing still…and sternly asked her to “please put your hands down, ma’am.” This was the moment I started to hold my breath, out of fear of persecution. I only let myself breathe again once I realized that holding my breath could potentially result in some sort of a cough, which obviously would have caused a facial movement, which would have seemingly branded me a dumb, muscle-moving, democracy-hating piece of shit.
So, instead of taking a video of an entire arena trying desperately not to flinch, I took a video of the carpet, so I could at least capture the audio. Because people got snappy! One person near me said, “You’re supposed to stop,” to someone in a tone so bitchy, you would have thought the perpetrator spent 20 minutes trying to pull open a door that was clearly marked push. I recorded someone yelling, “You’re moving!” then someone else yelling, “Would you stop moving?” and then a few people yelling, “Moving!” like they were the Game of Thrones townspeople yelling “shame!” As I said, it got tense!

I’m still wondering why this was necessary, but it seems to be a tradition. (Kinda cool?) Shirmohammadi’s used the same camera to photograph multiple DNCs, including the last six presidential inaugurations, according to digital photography site Peta Pixel. I guess if you can’t use a 110-year-old camera to photograph a political convention, what can you use it for?? Alternatively, Jezebel contributor Susan Rinkunas suggested the camera was “a symbol of gerontocracy.” I believe these both to be true.

I’d say it took about three minutes before Shirmohammadi finally let everyone move. And I’ll never again take that freedom of moment for granted.

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