Photos part 3 of 3

Rooftop spectators viewing the parade across the street.

A black-clad ninja scans the crowd with a pair of giant binoculars from atop the Dept. of Justice Building. The fellow next to me pointed at him and yelled, "It's Batman!"

There were several layers of security along the parade route. Camo'd National Guardsmen, DC Police, all branches of the military, and many other groups helped maintain security.

After the oath of office, the presidential helicopter flew overhead carrying Bush and Cheney away. The crowd roared with joy, and people in our bleachers started singing "Nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey, good-bye!"

More rooftop ninjas scanned the crowd for signs of trouble. The crowd was uniformly well-behaved and very happy, despite the cold.

OK, I'll be the first to admit that I blew it. I only had my Fuji J10 digital camera with me, which I used to shoot pictures and video. I didn't think it would be easy to get my big Canon video camera through security. Did I mention how cold it was out there? Working a camera while wearing gloves is hard. And I found out that when I use the full optical and digital zoom together, it turns the image into a blurry fucking mess.

I was shooting video right until they approached, then I switched to picture mode to capture this bit of digital magic, and then I turned it back to video to capture them walking away. So when I edit and post the video, at least you'll get to see them a bit. Plus you'll hear the sound of the crowd cheering, which is cool.

In the future I'll commit to one mode of shooting only, either pictures or video. But at least I have this to remember the historic event.