What It Was Like to Cover the Obama Inaugural

The view from the U.S. Capitol's south camera stand, with Dirck Halstead's 600mm Canon lens in the foreground. Bitter cold was a problem for the photographers who had to man their positions as early as 4 a.m.

Veteran photographer Frank Fournier suffers from the bitter cold as David Burnett tapes him with his video camera in the early-morning hours of Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, 2009.

Photographers and TV camera operators atop the 30-foot central camera stand at the U.S. Capitol. They had to get into position before 6 a.m. and endured frigid temperatures and winds until the Obama Inaugural ceremony at noon.

Looking like a ninja, Xinhua News Agency photographer Xhang Yan endures the bitter cold on the south camera stand on the west front of the U.S. Capitol in the early-morning hours prior to Barack Obama's Inaugural.

Photographer Peter Turnley with CNN's Christiane Amanpour on the camera stand at the Inauguration of Barack Obama, Jan. 20, 2009, Washington, D.C.

The Digital Journalist's Dirck Halstead on the south stand on the west front of the U.S. Capitol, photographing the Obama Inaugural. He is using both the Canon 5D Mark II with a 600mm lens and a Canon Vixia HV30, with a Sennheiser MKE 400 mic, Sennheiser wireless system and a BeachTek DXA-2 adaptor.This was the 12th presidential Inaugural ceremony that Halstead has covered, dating back to the Kennedy Inauguration in 1961.

Dirck Halstead's press credentials for Barack Obama's Inaugural.

David Hume Kennerly photographs the Obama family watching the "We are One" Inaugural concert at the Lincoln Memorial, Jan. 18, 2009. Kennerly was Gerald Ford's official White House photographer.