The DNC Floor Got Real Tense When Instructed Not to Move So a 110-Year-Old Camera Could Capture a Photo

I was stressed as hell Sunday night when I learned at 8 p.m. that my 7:30 a.m. flight to Chicago was canceled. Shockingly, that stress was nothing compared to the stress I felt on the DNC floor Tuesday night when a photographer asked the entire convention center to stay completely still so he could use a 110-year-old camera to take a panoramic photo. Why did we, the attendees of the 2024 Democratic National Convention, need to have our photo taken with a 110-year-old camera? Your guess is as good as mine! I tried to take a video of the scene, but my hand was hanging at my side and the vibes got so tense that I was too scared to bend my arm. The photographer, Abbas Shirmohammadi, kept begging the thousands of attendees to stop moving since even the slightest movement could blur a piece of the photo. "Do. Not. Move," he said slowly at one point as if he was speaking to a room of first graders. "It's an extremely sensitive camera." A photographer shooting the floor with a 110 year old camera #DNC pic.twitter.com/t6greRbsTd — Susan Swain (@cspanSusan) August 20, 2024 At another point, Shirmohammadi—who was standing on a raised platform in the middle of the arena—managed to spot one woman who was...not standing still...and sternly asked her to "please put your hands down, ma'am." This was the moment I started to hold my breath, out of fear of persecution. I only let myself breathe again once I realized that holding my breath could potentially result in some sort of a cough, which obviously would have caused a facial movement, which would have seemingly branded me a dumb, muscle-moving, democracy-hating piece of shit. So, instead of taking a video of an entire arena trying desperately not to flinch, I took a video of the carpet, so I could at least capture the audio. Because people got snappy! One person near me said, "You're supposed to stop," to someone in a tone so bitchy, you would have thought the perpetrator spent 20 minutes trying to "Pull" open a door that was clearly marked "Push." I recorded someone yelling, "You're moving!" then someone else yelling, "Would you stop moving?" and then a few people yelling, "Moving!" like they were the Game of Thrones townspeople yelling "Shame!" As I said, it got tense! I'm still wondering why this was necessary, but it seems to be a tradition. (And a tradition that I ultimately think is pretty cool!) Shirmohammadi's used the same camera to photograph multiple DNCs, including the last six presidential inaugurations, according to digital photography site, Peta Pixel. I guess if you can't use a 110-year-old camera to photograph a political convention, what can you use it for?? Alternatively, Jezebel contributor Susan Rinkunas suggested the camera was "a symbol of gerontocracy." I believe these both to be true. I'd say it took about three minutes before Shirmohammadi finally let everyone move again. And I'll never again take that freedom of moment for granted.