45 days behind the desk

"Rep. Michael T. Morley laughs as he and others on the House of Representatives floor work on a bill during the final day of the 58th Utah State Legislature at the State Capitol in Salt Lake City, Thursday, March 11, 2010."

It's the one thing that is always talked about - not the weather - politics.

The general session of the Utah Legislature is 45 days long, and I found myself at the state capitol three times - Once for the start, once somewhere in the middle, and yep, you guessed it, once for the commencement.

While I have my own stance on politics, I have never found myself genuinely, deeply interested. I am not totally sure why, maybe because political discussion generally results with no positive resoultion for either party.

So to say I was excited to get up to the hill (yes, the capitol is actually on a hill here in Utah) these past three times would be an overstatement.

Conversely, it was a challenge that I enjoyed. Whether it was studying closely what was going on, trying to make legislators look eye-catching as they merely sat behind desks, or attempting to burn five hours waiting for a session to start, I relished my time there.

With the last day, I need to get a laundry list of images of representatives from our coverage area. In addition, I had to capture whatever else our beat XGR reporter needed.

But my main task I knew, without being told, was to make A1 art.

While our reporter cracked the big story before it really happen, I stomped around trying to make something visual. There were a lot of "moments" but many of which weren't of my "people," a la, representatives from Utah County.

So I looked around for something graphic. In my hunt, I noticed a reflection in a pillar and ran with it. I worked it for a good 25 minutes. I was satisfied.