Shana Wittenwyler sort of fell into covering the primary season. That is to say, she started off in Florida shooting Ron Paul at the Republican debates for the Irish rag Mongrel Magazine, and ended up a few months later on assignment for the New York Times in Missouri. In between, she was in Iowa and South Carolina.
A freelancer, Shana didn’t mean to cover politics in particular. Since her graduation from the Photojournalism program at ICP in 2005, she has shot all sorts of features for Fortune, The Chicago Tribune, Rolling Stone, and others. But she found herself hooked on the excitement of the Ron Paul campaign when in Florida, and didn’t want to stop taking pictures. So, as a photojournalist, and a broke one at that, Shana started to contact politics editors. But you can’t call up the Times and tell them you want to shoot a campaign for them; it’s a hell of a process.
Check it out here.