A small audience at the Lincoln Memorial

A small audience at the Lincoln Memorial: “

When it looked as though Obama was going to win the election, former photojournalist Matt Mendelsohn went to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC expecting to find a huge crowd of celebrants.

I’d spent most of election night in front of the TV in Arlington, Va. But around 11 p.m. I couldn’t sit idle any longer, which is why I sped to the memorial. When I arrived, I found a TV crew sitting on the plaza above the Reflecting Pool, waiting, I assumed, for a mob to arrive. I approached with cameras in hand. One of them looked up and said with a slight roll of his eyes, ‘Nothing to see here.’

Instead he found a small group of people listening to Obama’s acceptance speech on a transistor radio and shot this wonderful picture of the scene. I can’t think of an image that better characterizes the grass-roots, get-out-the-vote, small-donations-by-millions-of-people aspect of Obama’s campaign. (via 3qd)

Update: Here’s another view of the same scene. (thx, andy)

(link)”

(Via kottke.org.)