Went to a Romney rally today in Omaha, NE

This is a great idea. Crowd head-counting, (before software was invented to do it), has a series of steps one can follow to estimate crowd size.

Even with the software, you have to have the crowd photographs.

Venue capacity is of course the obvious first step. Then one estimates the amount of the venue that is occupied with people, then quadrants are selected where a real, physical head count is made, laboriously.

If there are bleachers or rows of chairs, estimating how many chairs in a row, how many rows, or how many fit, (on average), on a bleacher can lead to some accurate crowd estimates.

All these elements come together to form a very good estimate of a crowd size.

The most important part of any crowd counting photography is to get good, steady pictures of the crowd, and this can be done in sections, you don't have to get all of the crowd in one shot ... and to get the pictures from a slightly elevated vantage point.

When taking crowd count photos, don't stop, take as many hundreds of photos as your camera will allow, then pick the best later.

It's best to take the pictures from the stage, as all faces are then pointing towards the camera. To be elevated, about 10-15 feet ABOVE the stage is ideal. At a "friendly" rally, this can be accomplished with some coordination and foresight. Youth for Ron Paul has some very good opportunities to do just this kind of thing.

Camera on top of a sign stick works real good. A camera mounted to a 15 foot pole, (a camera that can be operated with a remote control), works very well. Lashing this securely to the stage works very well.

A camera can be lashed to a well trained squirrel, provided it is well fed and cared for. :-)

Bring a Monopod, put the camera on the monopod and hoist it up in the air after clicking the shutter button with the camera set for a 10 second delay. Lash a 1/2" dowel rod to the top of the monopod in the direction that the camera is shooting, helps to point it.

Crowd head-counting photographs are a science and take a great deal of concentration and some planning, but ... opportunities for easy shots always make themselves available. If you are 100% prepared to "BE the crowd photographer and NOTHING else", then when the opportunity for the perfect crowd shot comes, BAM, you've got it.

When the crowd is listening to the speaker with some intensity, this is the time to take a crowd count photo.

Just after a crowd cheers or applauds, they tend to become very still in the minutes that follow, get the shot then.

The best way to get great crowd shots is to launch a small blimp or lighter than air craft like a hydrogen or helium ballon with a camera beneath it. On calmer days, with less wind, a person in the middle of the crowd, fills a large helium ballon with a light weight platform on it with a camera attached and bingo, overhead crowd shot.

If you are taking pictures WHILE the ballon is ascending nearly 100% of the people in the crowd will be looking up at the ballon in one of those shots. Facial recognition crowd counting software can then be used for very, very accurate counts.

The copter is a great idea, but a bit dangerous as it can crash into the crowd ... but it's doable as long as the copter is not OVER the crowd.

If you launch the copter from behind the stage, you could get some awesome crowd shots and I mean historical, you could get crowd shots of a political rally for a presidential candidate that might even win a national photography award.

In the photo you link to I'm counting about 80-90 heads after enhancing in photoshop with various techniques, and I'm being generous. Most of the smaller female's heads are hidden, too low, so we have to factor in and estimate.

This speech looks as though it may have been in the Kansas City Westin Hotel's "Century Ballroom", (chandaliers). The facebook photo you link to is about 7 hours old at this time. Wall color, ceiling patterns and wall patterns, (partition designs), generally match.

Research in google using the "guest names" that are cited in the quote confirms a fund raiser for Romney at the Westin today in Missouri where some of these people are reported as being in attendance.

Further research in google, in the images section yields no crowd photos of the event.

Research on the Westin meeting rooms and venue hosting rooms further indicates this picture is probably taken in the "Century Ballroom" at the Kansas City, Missouri "Westin" hotel.

The Century Ballroom has partitions that divide the the ballroom into 3 sections. We can see at least 3 Chandaliers in the picture, therefore, the entire ballroom is probably open.

Firecode MAX for the ballroom when completely deployed is 2,000 people.

From the picture, we can see the crowd is loosely packed and the attendees are "clumped" into small cliques of people. This indicates about 20-30% "open space" in the crowd mass, so we are at a max attendee figure of ~ 1,750 already, if indeed it was as reported, "standing room only".

The picture taken indicates the crowd is thinning towards the back, subtract another 20% from the total capacity. Let's be generous, 1,600 max, if room is at capacity.

But the "crowd columns" as we count from foreground to background, towards the stage are 10 deep at MOST, and thinning rapidly at the position from where the photo was taken, (probably from the back of the crowd), so as to not get anybody's face in the photo.

This photo was taken with great care to include as many people as possible, while not allowing for any additional image data on the edges of the crowd for analysis. The photo was taken from a riser, probably while standing in a chair, perhaps or while holding the camera aloft with arms stretched up.

Research on this event indicates the venue was MOVED/CHANGED to a larger room inside the Hotel.

We can assume for the purposes of estimation that the previous room booked was filled to capacity, thus the move.

Generally speaking, when a meeting room at a Hotel is 10% over-booked, (or reaches booking capacity), fire codes come into play and management is required to suggest a solution for overflow to the customer. Sales policies for hotel employees require them to offer overflow once booking capacity for a venue reaches 90% of capacity.

Usually, for meetings like this, overflow is planned for in advance.

This chart indicates seating capacity, (capacity for the meeting rooms), at the Westin:

These are fire-code capacities, not actually how many people you can stuff inside the rooms. Generally, legal maximums are posted for hotel meeting room capacities.

http://www.cvent.com/rfp/kansas-city-hotels/the-westin-kansa...

Of all the meeting rooms available at the Westin that are NOT ... the ballroom, the highest capacity is 480.

So we might anticipate that as many as 450 people RSVP'd or puchased tickets to the event, thus prompting a move of the venue.

Further research yields this series of articles stating the number of people who attended:

1. http://www.kansascity.com/2012/05/10/3605526/romney-raises-1...

2. http://20poundsofheadlines.wordpress.com/ (Romney A'la Bain Capital slammed in these blogs, good reading).

These articles seem to indicate that about 400 very, very rich people showed up for the event and gave Mr. Romney 1.2 million dollars. He sold tickets to the event which is of course a way to get around the $2,500 maximum personal campaign contribution, (one of many, many, many ways).

So the reports that it was "standing room only", was an effort by the Romney campaign to save the money it would have cost to deploy chairs in the ballroom, they just had participants stand on the dance floor.

Or perhaps there was dining in one part of the room and then attendees moved to the dance floor for the speech.

I don't think there were 400 there, but those that were there, were "buying shares in Mitt Romney", for sure.

I've typed all this out because I want to demonstrate that "crowd-counting" is not just counting heads in a picture, there are many other factors that go into crowd estimation.

Although, if you have a good crowd shot, then a decent "head counter" can offer not only a good estimate, but one that cannot be argued with rationally.

So, don't exaggerate Dr. Paul's attendance because I'm not the only schmuck that can do this kind of stuff, and don't belittle Romney's, just tell the truth and make Dr. Paul proud of you.

Now that Ron Paul rally attendance has been well documented and creative derivative abounds, it really does make sense to get some good photos of these Romney rallies.

1. Wide angle

2. Higher ASA in darker venue

3. monopod or small tripod for longer exposure times.

4. elevated position for crowd shot.

If you want to go secret agent to produce Romney rally photos that can be "head counted", this is your chance. This kind of intel is extremely important.

To compliment the current and well developed Ron Paul rally documentation campaign, there just couldn't be anything better than this.

I mean all of them getting protection from cops and the Secret Service. Just stop it. get rid of the secret service. We would be lucky if someone killed them. It would be a good think if any of them caught a bullet. I know I sure wouldn't shed a tear. The least I would do is shed something else on their graves.