When Welsh cameraman Dai Baker recently said he judged leaders he met by how they treated camera crews, it reminded me of my own experience with Bruce Billson. Earlier this year I'd been asked to take a portrait shot of the then small business minister, who used the opportunity to offer a coffee. Photographers are used to being ignored, so this was an anomaly. I declined but he insisted I take a packet of honey soy chicken chips, which he pulled out of the lower drawer of his ministerial desk.
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Political photojournalists spend a lot of time observing human behaviour and interactions. Sometimes a person can be very different depending on whether the camera is on or off. Bill Shorten probably wasn't expecting to be on camera when he had his "big misunderstanding" with a milk bar owner over a soft meat pie. And he probably wasn't aware press photographers were watching him at RAAF Fairbairn when he greeted a ground crew on the tarmac while most eyes were focused on Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge, who were about to board a flight departing Canberra.
It's moments when a politician doesn't know they're on camera that reveal small glimpses of other sides to them. Who could forget when former British prime minister Gordon Brown called a Labour supporter a 'bigoted woman' when he thought he was in the privacy of his own car but still wired to a Sky News microphone. Or closer to home when former PM Tony Abbott had a "private conversation" with Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton, where they joked about the plight of Pacific island nations facing rising sea levels before realising a boom microphone looming overhead was recording their conversation.
When Billson announced his retirement from politics last week, it cast my mind back to our portrait shoot. The 'energised' Bruce my lens captured was the real Bruce.
At a coding bootcamp organised for politicians last week, I spotted him at the back of the room quietly listening to two young students talk about their project. Too many times I've seen politicians engage with people only for the photos and then leave once the cameras were switched off, so I was a little surprised. Bruce had already announced his retirement and wasn't chasing any votes. He wasn't doing it for the cameras as the scrum was on the other side of the room. He was genuinely interested.
Visitors to the press gallery often love dropping into the Fairfax photo bureau to see all the front pages hanging on the walls. Australia has had five prime ministers in just over five years. The Rudd-Gillard-Rudd-Abbott-Turnbull years have kept politics in the news and when visitors look at the walls, they're usually struck by how much political news has happened in such a relatively short time.
But the one question I get the most is this: "Why is there a pack of chips on your wall?". They're my Bruce Billson chips; a reminder to leave my cynicism at the door each time I leave the office.
