PHOTOJOURNALIST SCOUT TUFANKJIAN ON FOLLOWING OBAMA ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
CBS News Transcripts
January 21, 2009 Wednesday
MAGGIE RODRIGUEZ, co-host (Washington, DC):
Everybody who came here to Washington, DC, had to be here, because
it was just such a long shot. When Barack Obama launched his campaign
for the presidency, nobody said it could happen.
HARRY SMITH, co-host (Washington, DC):
But one photojournalist was there from the very beginning. Take a look.
Scout Tufankjian’s photographs are part of history now. And so is
her last name.
Ms. SCOUT TUFANKJIAN (Photojournalist): It means "son of a gun."
SMITH: Really?
Ms. TUFANKJIAN: Mm-hmm.
SMITH: In?
Ms. TUFANKJIAN: Armenian.
SMITH: In Armenian.
Tufankjian started her career covering the Gaza Strip.
So is this the camera?
Ms. TUFANKJIAN: Yeah, this is my baby.
SMITH: Next came an assignment for a Barack Obama book signing in
December 2006 in New Hampshire.
Ms. TUFANKJIAN: I drove up there, and I just–I thought it was going
to be so boring.
SMITH: Senator Obama wasn’t even a candidate then.
Ms. TUFANKJIAN: I mean, I didn’t know anything about this stuff.
SMITH: Even though thousands of her photographs were eventually
published in newspapers and magazines, most of the time Tufankjian
had to pay her own way.
Ms. TUFANKJIAN: These are my maxed out credit cards. These are the
three that–I paid off two of them.
SMITH: Two years and one million photographs later, Tufankjian’s first
book, "Yes We Can," she was the only independent photojournalist to
cover the Obama campaign from start to finish.
Had you ever met anyone like him before?
Ms. TUFANKJIAN: No. You can be so sick of him, and you know, having
heard the same speech and you’re tired and you haven’t slept and I
haven’t seen my boyfriend in six weeks and I haven’t had a decent
meal in ages and I’m crabby and I’m angry, and he smiles at you and
it just kind of knocks you over. For people years from now, I want
them to see this is–this is what this moment in history was like,
this is how it felt, this is how I saw it.
SMITH: This is June 3, 2008. Nomination is his.
Ms. TUFANKJIAN: This is the day that he said `I am the Democratic
nominee for president of the United States.’ This woman would not
let go.
SMITH: Right.
Ms. TUFANKJIAN: They thought, `This guy’s going to president, he’s
going to change my life, he’s going to change my kid’s life. He is
going to change the country.’
SMITH: Do you have a favorite picture?
Ms. TUFANKJIAN: My favorite picture. My girls from South Carolina. They
saw him and went completely insane side. I love them.
SMITH: Tufankjian was most impressed by Obama’s discipline, but she
also saw another side.
Here’s one.
Ms. TUFANKJIAN: This is right after Pennsylvania, so this is after
they had him doing all of the…
SMITH: Oh, bowling and drinking beer.
Ms. TUFANKJIAN: The bowling, the drinking the PVR.
SMITH: Right. Did you see him drink martinis?
Ms. TUFANKJIAN: In Berlin.
SMITH: As somebody who was there so much of two years, what was his
response to you?
Ms. TUFANKJIAN: He treated me like an annoying younger relative. He
would grab my hands and shake my camera. Or during a rope line would
be like, `Scout, you’re distracting me!’
SMITH: Do you ever feel like you’ll be able to get that close again?
Ms. TUFANKJIAN: No, definitely not.
SMITH: Sometimes Tufankjian and Obama were alone at early campaign
events. Now they both have plenty of company.
And I saw Scout on the train from Philadelphia down to DC on Saturday,
and she is covering the prayer service this morning…
RODRIGUEZ: Today.
SMITH: …at the National Cathedral. It’s…
RODRIGUEZ: What a privilege.
SMITH: Yeah. And the thing is, if you’re a still photographer, you can
get a little closer to the candidate, because there’s no tape running,
there’s no camera on.
RODRIGUEZ: Right. Right.
SMITH: A video camera on. So there’s a little bit–you get a more
candid view, and those pictures that she took surely show that.
RODRIGUEZ: I never thought I would find someone who spent more time
on the trail with him than you, but we have.
SMITH: Or our intrepid daily correspondents who were on that bus a lot.
RODRIGUEZ: This is true.
SMITH: Mm.