January 20, 2009. Just 100 days ago, I stood on the National Mall in Washington DC. We had begun our day at 4am, taken the Metro in from Dulles Airport, and stood in the freezing cold for hours to witness the Inauguration of Barack Obama.
I knew the day would be historic. I didn't know I'd be part of it.
Our story of the day included my 11 year old son's first day as a photojournalist. He had 'Big Snapper' my Sony Digital SLR in his hands for most of the day -- taking pictures.
And it wasn't until 8pm -- 16 hours later -- that I was shooting away, photographing my son on the Washington DC Metro.
Then, back in the hotel -- exhausted -- I uploaded hundreds of photos from the day to Photobucket. There I learned that there was an official inauguration photo book, and there would be some photos chosen from the Photobucket users. There were 20,000 submissions. Had I known that, I might have decided to grab some sleep rather than upload pictures. But you never know -- do you?
So, imagine our surprise when we found out that our picture was chosen -- and that it was just one of twelve pictures from non-professional photographers that would be included in the
book that will sit on the coffee table in The White House. Wow.
Here's the book:
Here's the photo that's in the book:
And this is Murray's story, every word written by him!
My name is Murray Rosenbaum, and I'm 11 years old. In this picture, it is close to 8pm January 20th and I'm ridding the Washington Metro. We started the day at four am. We were coming back to the hotel from seeing Barrack Obama being inaugurated, being in the biggest crowd of my life, and so much more.
During the morning, I was really, really grouchy but, when we got on the National Mall I felt a sudden burst of energy which as you can see in this picture lasted the whole day. Even though we were still almost a mile away, it was such an amazing experience I can't even put it into words.
It was a long wait to get to even the metro entrance we had Chinese food for dinner, and after a very nice dinner after a long day we finally got on the train to go back to the relaxing, cozy, and nice hotel.
When I saw Barrack Obama become President on January 20th close to a million people and I knew that Obama was going to make this country a better place, stop the war in Iraq, and most importantly focusing on us, the citizens of the U.S.
Now we know that this book, the official Inauguration photobook, will be sitting in the Oval Office, that is really cool.
Here are all the Photobucket pictures that are in the book: