Tuesday night marked the end of a long and hard-fought campaign season for many, and while Utah is by no means a swing state, there were some heavily-contested races in the state that added some excitement to the evening. Election nights can be a bit of a thrill for journalists. There is so much happening at once; the high energy environment can, at times, threaten to overwhelm your attempts to keep an eye on everything at once.

The foremost item on a photographer’s election night coverage is reaction, but those true emotions are often reserved for the moment of the final results, which are often announced either close to or after our deadline for the next day’s newspaper. That leaves us cruising the election parties for features and interesting characters in the meantime. Election night parties have an electricity that is palpable as a feeling but often difficult to visually translate to the reader.

Most of the Utah County candidates in Tuesday’s election spent the evening at their respective party’s election night get-togethers in Salt Lake. Of our photographers, James Roh was covering the Democrat election party and Spenser Heaps and I covered the Republican Election Night Party at the Hilton.

On one of my cruises looking for scene-setting preresult photos, I found a modern day Abraham Lincoln standing in front of an American flag and handing out pennies. While it didn’t say anything directly about the election at hand, the photo said something about the continual cycle of looking backwards for historical inspiration in the course of making history today.

It was a great learning experience to be shooting alongside Spenser and the multitude of other photographers working at the Republican election party. My political photography experience is relatively small, but it was enlightening to watch other photographers’ methods and to be, in however small of a way, part of an important night in our nation’s history.

[gallery_header ids=”1419298″]