![U.S. Senator Obama waits to speak in Chicago](https://johngress.com/wp-content/uploads//2012/05/Corbis-42-17787744-600x434.jpg)
One thing stuck out in my mind this weekend as I was ushered from one place to place by military and State Department personnel: It wasn’t that long ago that I could roam the hallways of McCormick Place freely with then Senator Barack Obama. In the very room where NATO was held, I photographed Mr. Obama up close and personal, there wasn’t a rope, there wasn’t any security and there weren’t 50 other photographers trying to do the same thing. Five years ago, I was free and today I can move around my neighborhood without a care in the world, but, our President will never be able to go from A to B without bodyguards protecting his every move.
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