Among the small crowd permitted at Wednesday’s presidential inauguration were two former Augusta photographers who sharpened their talents on the streets of the Garden City.
Jonathan Ernst and Rob Carr had a front row seat to history as they captured the big day for their news agencies. Ernst covers Washington, D.C., for Reuters, and Carr is a chief photographer in the area of sports for Getty Images.
Both worked at The Augusta Chronicle in the late 1990s and early 2000s. And now, they both cover major events, one with regular coverage of The White House, and the other chasing big-time events like the Olympics, the Super Bowl and the World Series.
Before Wednesday’s swearing-in ceremony, the two former Chronicle colleagues ran into each other for a moment.
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“We always talk about our days at The Chronicle, because we had a lot of good days there,” Carr said. “A lot of our knowledge and skill set came from working at The Chronicle.”
While living in the Augusta area, Ernst met his future wife Emily Sollie who was a reporter. And three of Carr’s four sons were born in Augusta at University Hospital.
They’ve hit the big time, though. If you watched the inauguration, you couldn’t miss Ernst, who was 15 yards behind the lectern at Capitol door where officials and honorees enter. He was literally in arm’s reach of President Biden as he stepped on to the podium, snapping photos and serving as a pool photographer for the wire services. (See Ernst’s images here: https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/jonathan-
ernst?events=775612666&family=editorial&phrase=jonathan%20ernst&sort=newest)
“It was particularly poignant this year to be at the Capitol door, knowing that just two weeks earlier it was one of the locations of some of the worst fighting on January 6th,” Ernst said. “At one point on the sixth, I had been inside the Capitol on the other side of the exact same door, watching early in the fighting as Capitol Police officers who had been maced were brought in for treatment — and I have several friends and co-workers who did some really brave, amazing work all over the Capitol that day.”
How did he feel about Wednesday’s event?
“Inaugurations are almost always a time of energy and change — not just for the country broadly, but certainly for those of us whose daily job a significant part of the year means covering the White House,” Ernst said. “It’s kind of like the first day of school, meeting all new people who end up having a significant impact on our lives.”
Carr’s photos were taken a little differently because of the pandemic. He set up a robotic camera on a center stand in front of the podium, snapping photos remotely from inside a nearby trailer.
He has used a robotic camera many times before, including at the World Series in Dallas and the 2012 Olympics in London.
Even though he didn’t physically touch his camera, the images were magical. Former First Lady Michelle Obama even tweeted out an image he captured of Amanda Gorman, the nation’s first- ever youth poet laureate who became a sensation. (See Carr’s images here:
https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/rob-carr?events=775612666&family=editorial&page=2&phrase=Rob%20Carr&sort=newest#license)
“I had no idea that that particular image would be tweeted by her and then retweeted and her story would become so viral,” Carr said. “When you are getting text messages from friends two hours later, yeah, that was pretty cool. I didn’t see that one coming. But that is part of my job.”
Ultimately, Carr said it was an historic day but one that lacked the pomp and circumstance of the four previous inaugurations he has covered.
“When I saw Obamas, it was such a historic moment. It was very historic nature with him being our first African American president. I have been there when crowds were huge,” he said. “This one was – I don’t want to say eerie – but there were no crowds at all. There were no crowds in the streets. Much like Obama, I think Biden’s was historic. Not from anything to do with partisanship, just because there were no people there, no atmosphere, because of this pandemic. It lacked the feel and the excitement and the energy. That is what struck me.”
From Augusta to the Nation’s Capital
Ernst was 25 when he was hired at The Augusta Chronicle near the end of 1997. A native of Pittsburgh, it was his first full-time newspaper job after working part-time in Asheville, N.C.
He was first hired to work in the Columbia County bureau, where he met his future wife, but he soon moved downtown to the main office. At the time, The Chronicle made an intentional habit of hiring young journalists and fostering their talent like the “teaching hospitals” shown in many TV dramas.
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“There was so much great energy, so many wonderful people to work with — and back then there was also a lot of money in the budget for wide-ranging stories,” Ernst recalls.
One story Ernst pitched at The Chronicle was to cover then-congressman Lindsey Graham when he was making a name for himself during the Clinton impeachment. Ernst didn’t realize that would be a window into his future.
“By luck, I was in Washington to do the feature on him when the House decided to vote on Clinton’s impeachment. It meant that twenty years later, I was one of the few news photographers at the Capitol for Trump’s first impeachment who knew how it was choreographed because I’d done it for the Chronicle,” Ernst said.
He said he learned so much in Augusta.
“A lot of us from that era are still friends, and there are a few of us from the photo staff at that time who will run into each other on major stories around the country,” he said.
As the Chronicle’s director of photography, Carr’s fondest memories of Augusta are sports-related, including covering The Masters golf tournament. He also enjoyed GreenJacket games.
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“My favorite thing to do was the Augusta GreenJackets,” he said. “Great stadium, great atmosphere. Minor league baseball. I loved going there. I loved taking my kids there. My kids were big into baseball. Obviously living in Georgia, you could play baseball 10 months of the year because of the weather.”
Carr has four sons, ages 24, 21, 18, and 16. The single father returns to Augusta regularly, such as last year when he covered rescheduled Masters tournament. He stayed at a rental home and visited old neighbors.
The Future
By Friday, Ernst was back at The White House, snapping photos in the Oval Office of Biden’s moon rock and newly hung portraits. He’s been in the room many times.
Carr is back to the world of sports. He is based in Baltimore but travels frequently. Next week, he flies to Tampa for the Super Bowl.
“Back to the daily grind. Back to work and hoping these vaccines take hold and sports comes back to some kind of normalcy,” he said.
Ernst is living the dream, covering his third president and enjoying his young son.
“I would not have known when I left the Chronicle — and it was really hard to leave — that after more than a few years in the wilderness, my dream job awaited,” he said. “I still have so much more I’d like to accomplish in my work here. The hard news angles in Washington ebb and flow. It’s been a really busy time for us, for which I’m grateful.”
“It’s also good to have time to breathe and to try to tell the stories of ordinary people, which take more time. I’m looking forward to hopefully having some of that in my life again soon. I really miss telling stories in the South and can’t wait for the opportunity to do that very soon. I don’t know that I’ll end my working life in this job, but I’d be hard pressed to imagine a morerewarding job while I’m at it.”
Greg Rickabaugh is the Jail Report Contributor for The Augusta Press. Reach him at greg.rickabaugh@theaugustapress.comgreg.rickabaugh@theaugustapress.com
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