Eric Thayer's G.O.P. Campaign Photos Eric Thayer, 37, has been covering the Republican nominating contest almost nonstop since last July in Iowa. He has mostly photographed for The New York Times but has also worked for Reuters in New Hampshire and South Carolina. James Estrin spoke with Mr. Thayer about the primary season. Their conversation has been edited and condensed. Are you a masochist? Somewhat I guess. It's definitely some long days, but it's a lot of fun covering the candidates and being a part of history. Was this your first campaign? I covered the election in 2007, 2008, for a while, but this was my first experience with the whole cycle. When you start out at the straw poll, no one's controlling anything, they don't have events very well set up, even Romney. But as time goes on, the events are more and more organized. To a degree, the more organized it is, the more they're setting up your photograph. In a way, but there's also a way to separate yourself and still try to walk away and get something different. Especially working for The Times, you're always looking for something different, away from the pack. Even at the end, on primary night in Wisconsin, everybody set up in one place, and I decided to take another spot as Romney walked in, and that spot paid off. You're definitely under a different set of parameters in a well-organized campaign, but you can still find different pictures if you work hard enough. The more organized it is, the more they're trying to make something visually pleasing so the photographers make good-looking photos that essentially make advertisements for the candidates. That's true, but you can still wander away from that and make your way into positions where you can utilize the light, and utilize the position of the candidate to make something more creative. That's what we do. We look for different angles, we look for those - to shoot pictures, or you can go off into the crowds. So as much as they try to control you, you can still make your way out there and find those pictures. A good example of that is Charles Ommanney and Christopher Morris, who cover the president for Newsweek and Time. That's the highest control that you can imagine, and those guys still made amazing images. Campaigning on a national level, is for the most part, artifice. It's more about the media coverage than it is about candidates meeting voters one-on-one, though I'm sure you saw that in Iowa, particularly with Santorum. There was this turning point for Santorum's campaign where he had worked and worked and worked and pushed in Iowa harder than any other candidates had. The day after Christmas, he had this hunting trip. Before this, there wasn't much press attention. Santorum was out there dressed in orange with a shotgun, with his son, with his guide. They wouldn't let us on the hunting grounds without orange. So all the press had to go to the gift shop and buy something orange. One of us bought a hat, one bought a T-shirt, and we're all trouncing through this field trying to find this hunting party. Well, not every moment when you're with your colleagues in the press is a moment that you're proud of. Sometimes, this pack develops, and you're with a candidate pushing through crowds. They call it the scrum. Sometimes, you're part of this scrum, trying to just get a picture. Especially in places like Iowa, it looks so out of place. I can imagine what it looks like to people, in these tiny little towns in Iowa or New Hampshire or South Carolina - like a circus comes to town. We were doing these bowling alleys in Wisconsin with Santorum, and the circus would just show up to this bowling alley, and just take over. And then it would be gone. Remember the last day in South Carolina with Romney in that restaurant? That was among the most embarrassing moments I've had as a member of the press corps. You were there first. The campaigns were calling it ham-gate because they were supposed to be there at the same time in this restaurant. They had both scheduled campaign events on the last day of campaigning in South Carolina in the same place - Tommy's Ham House, I think. Gingrich showed up first, then right after he left, Romney's bus showed up. We went inside, and it was crazy, falling over tables and pushing. Total chaos, and people were there just trying to eat breakfast. But you do your best, you just sort of take it in stride, when you see people getting annoyed, you try to joke, and you try to laugh with them. You can't really fault them for getting annoyed. You try to be as well mannered as you can given the circumstances of the chaos you're trying to cover. You got Romney in mid-air. It just sort of happened, I just happened to be on a chair. Because you guys were all within a few feet, you were in position to get him. Reuters already had somebody getting that shot, so I had the luxury of stepping away. And because of that, I got really lucky and happened to be on a chair, and happened to be looking down at a table at that. At that point, it's all luck, and it's you just take a picture, and that's it. You always want the best photo, and it's hard in a way to not compete with the wires, but if you compete with the wires, you're competing for the greatest wire photo, and I don't necessarily want it. Sometimes, you do want the great wire photo, but more often than not, you'd like to have a slice of reality. How do think about the other photographers who are there, and maybe even getting beaten by the wires? I'm ultra-competitive, so I never like to get beat when it comes to anything, but I never like to get beat when it comes to getting a moment or being there at the right place at the right time. I always like to get the moment, and I always like to get it in a different way, no matter who I'm working for. But at the same time, when somebody does beat you, and you're in this community of photojournalists, and you're always happy for that person because you have to be. We're competitive, but it pushes you in a very positive way, in the best way possible. You were talking about Chris Morris, Charles Ommanney - or for that matter David Burnett or Steve Crowley - there are always some people who are able to do something completely differently. On one hand, I like to not think too much about where other people are, but on the other hand, it's impossible to not notice. So you see all the wire people are over here, then you see someone is on the rooftop doing something completely strange. Well, that's the thing, you have to trust your shot, and you have to shoot your shot, and whether or not from straight on or from the side, or from the rooftop, it's whatever you see that's where you have to go. Sometimes, it's going to burn you, and sometimes, you're not always going to get the moment, and you're going to miss things. But you have to shoot your shot. What do you mean by your shot? It's what you see, whatever you see. If you think you need to be somewhere, and your instinct tells you you should be in this position, that's where you should go. You can't always follow the pack, like I said sometimes it doesn't always work out and sometimes you miss things, but if your instinct tells you to go in a direction. If my instinct tells me to go somewhere, I go there, and that's what I shoot. You just have to sort of let everything go, and know that that's your shot.