We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration- 01.18.09
Curiosity meant i couldn’t resist seeing what the scene was like at today’s concert at Lincoln Memorial ~ We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration. NPR had exclusive live broadcasting of the concert ~ and they have a great photo gallery (of things close up that i wasn’t able to see in person!) ~ with a star studded line up and the national mall filled with jumbotrons ~ we wandered over towards the end and caught barack obama’s speech from a nice spot near the washington monument ~ the real spectacle was the sheer number of people as we looked out from the massive obelisk down toward the teeny tiny lincoln memorial (live view 10x helped me see what was actually going on down there through the 5D!). It was pretty incredible how tens of thousands of people became dead quiet as he spoke. Silly as it sounds, just being a part of the masses was a fascinating experience ~ even the national park rangers were giddy about how many people were there! So here are some pics from our perspective to give you a feel of the (incredibly civilized!) crowds ~ and some fun tech amusements ~ from the awesome star wars feeling “ICx Tactical Platforms” police cherry-picker like high tech viewing towers, to the masses climbing on the jumbotron generators, to the people in trees… it was a pretty insane number of bodies out there! I can’t even image what Tuesday is going to be like…
Ok so that first picture was pretty photoshop zooooomed… here’s more of what it really looked like for me!
Directly behind was pretty impressive as well… SO many colorful people!
Obama on the jumbotrons ~ crowd dead silent ~ really, it creeped me out a bit, but was definitely a strange and memorable experience…
Do you see the three guys in trees in this picture?
Here’s the jumbotron generator crowd…
Once it ended, the jumbotrons gave out tips on how not to die in the cold, where you could walk through, what the weekend schedule was like, etc…
This was probably one of my favorite things while out on the national mall ~ watching a US Park Police officer come down in one of these ICx Tactical Platforms ~ a bit big brother, yet also technically fascinating ~ they had full 360 degree views, were mobile, and seem loaded up with gear and screens… even had the website advertised on the arm…
Great photos. This was one amazing event. Too bad they did not open up the field near the Vietnam Memorial. I guess the park service did not want any of it to get damaged. From my vantage point people were packed in like sardines.
----- Luke Wilbur 05.02.09 20:41