Inaugural panorama: ‘Where’s Waldo?’ for the political set

Chris Steller — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 17:35:55 +0000

This zoom-able online panoramic photo of the presidential inauguration is a “Where’s Waldo” puzzle for fun-loving political junkies (with slight stalker tendencies). One Minnesotan could school those vain attendees who went sans chapeau: U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar knows that hardiness means wearing a hat. And isn’t that Oberstar’s brother-in-beret and fellow committee chairman U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman sitting next to him, up in the good seats? You get the idea. Log your sightings in the comments section below.

Near President Obama, who’s giving his address from behind a curved balustrade in the photo’s center-left, are the most recognizable faces. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg looks like she wants to (and probably should) be somewhere else. Former Vice President Dick Cheney is captured in full-on Dr. Strangelove mode.

But where is Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak? He’s supposed to be seated, facing Obama just to his right, about 40 rows back. Haven’t seen him yet, and Minneapolis City Councilman Ralph Remington, who just announced he won’t run for re-election, is AWOL as well. But in the course of trying to find them, I discovered someone wearing what looks like a Howard Dean stocking cap a few rows in front a man who may or may not be sucking his thumb:

The photo is the work of freelance photographer David Bergman, who told the Minnesota Independent via e-mail that he was at the inauguration on assignment for the Corbis photo agency using a Gigapan robotic camera. It took six hours for his software to stitch the Gigapan’s 220 separate images into one. Hat tip to a Twitterer Chuck Olsen of The UpTake.

Minnesota Independent » david bergman

Inaugural panorama: ‘Where’s Waldo?’ for the political set