President Barack Obama, originally uploaded by tony.eckersley.

Today was a special day… A historic day if you will. January 20th, 2009, Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States of America. The first African-American ever to hold the office of U.S. Commander-in-Chief.

1.8 million people were in Washington DC on that (freezing) day and millions more witnessed history via TV, internet or radio around the world. It really was a global event and celebration – one I could truly felt. I am proud to be living in the USA.

I was lucky enough to have parade tickets and braved the cold for 13 hours until the end of the parade feeling honored to have witnessed this event in person and I feel great that one day I can tell my children and my grand children “I was there the day the USA elected Barack Obama as President”

Hit the jump to see some of my images that will hopefully sum up this wonderful day

Inaugural Parade Tickets! , originally uploaded by tony.eckersley.

I didn’t vote in the presidential election. I really wanted to. I knew from January 2007 who I wanted to be president of the USA. I knew who I believed would be the best person for the job, make a change, live the dream, give hope to those who needed it. Any quite frankly, clean up this mess.

So why didn’t I vote? Well I couldn’t! I’m not a citizen – just a green card holder. But I had my opinions, and I spread the word about Barack Obama. I knew how excited people were about him, I could feel it from every person around the world (outside of the USA) that I spoke to, that this was the guy for the job

I don’t want to go on a political rampage here, that’s not what this blog post is about. What I do want to talk about however is the inauguration and how excited I am the events.

For me, the highlight is the picture above – tickets to the inauguration parade! 5000 of these went on sale last Friday and sold out in under 1 minute. Madness. Luckily my mother in law scored 4. Who knew? Here I was, a real tech geek opening 4 browsers, signing in to Ticketmaster prior to 1pm and started refreshing 30 seconds before the ‘on sale’ time. I failed. Mother-in-law signs in casually, puts 4 down, and boom, scored.

I am really excited about taking my Canon 5D mkII to the inaugural events happening over the next week, and for these events, I have gone ahead and rented a lens – the Canon EF 70-200mm F/2.8 IS L, I lens I have been in the market for, for a while. I used www.lensrentals.com who quite frankly gave me some of the best customer service around. I highly recommend them! My first test comes on Sunday when I spend the day in DC around the Lincoln Memorial watching the kick-off events. I hope this ‘zoom’ lens will help me capture the magic surrounding these events.

And of course, Tuesday I’ll be heading into the Capital around 6am to get my spot on the mall to witness the swearing in (from a big screen I assume as there is no chance I will get close) and then eventually make my way to my parade seats. I feel so lucky to have them and am very grateful. Tuesday is going to be one of those days – a true once in a life time moment, and I can’t wait to witness it all first hand. And hopefully come away with some nice photographs (taking the 24-70mm F/2.8 and the 70-200mm F/2.8, which my wife will carry). Watch this space!