Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Wednesday, May 24. I’m Kent Nishimura, a staff photographer for the Los Angeles Times based out of Washington. I cover politics and national news.

The exercise of photographing a U.S. senator is a bit like a game of cat and mouse.

The photographers and reporters of the Capitol Hill press corps patiently mill about in case a person, most likely in a blue suit (or sometimes a hoodie) with a phalanx of staff, breezes by. That’s when we strike.

In these brief moments, we create the postcards of history.

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