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Photographer Nate Gowdy has been traveling the country for the presidential election

In just a few years, he went from shooting weddings to the cover of Time magazine

CNN  — 

Not many wedding photographers get tapped to take pictures of the leader of the free world.

But that’s what happened to Nate Gowdy.

One night in 2013, Gowdy checked his email after getting home from a photo gig. The Democratic National Committee, referred by a previous client’s spouse, was offering him a job at a local fundraiser.

The fundraiser’s guest of honor: President Barack Obama.

“It was the first time I’d ever worked at a Secret Service event,” Gowdy recalled. In addition to the commander in chief, the room was full of CEOs and other key political donors. For the first 15 minutes, Gowdy found himself shaking from the adrenaline rush.

As the official photographer for the event, Gowdy remembers the “surreal” feeling of being allowed to roam freely around – and very close to – the President. “I was trying not to be too intrusive,” he said.

Photographer Nate Gowdy

When the event was over, Gowdy asked Obama if he could have his photo taken with him.

“He looked at me with a big smile, and he said, ‘Sure, but first, I’m going to make you look good.’

“He was laughing,” Gowdy remembered, “because I guess my camera had messed up my collar. And he goes behind me and fixes my collar for me.”

The caterer standing nearby snapped the photo.

That led to other political photo assignments in Seattle, such as an event with Vice President Joe Biden and a meeting of Democratic U.S. senators.

By August 2015, he was ready to cast a wider net. Spending his own money, Gowdy began traveling to presidential candidate rallies in places like Iowa, Nevada, California, Oregon, Wisconsin, Indiana, New Hampshire, Vermont and South Carolina.

Within 10 months, one of his photos landed on the cover of Time magazine.

‘I don’t think I had any other choice’

There’s an almost giddy excitement in Gowdy’s voice when he talks about his adventures on the campaign trail. It’s like he still can’t believe how his life has changed.

Gowdy grew up not too far from Lake Michigan in Elkhart, Indiana, and he studied journalism at Indiana University. Back then, he thought he wanted to write. “I was a good writer, but the process was always hard and it made me want to pull my hair out,” he said.

After graduation and a dead-end job at a small newspaper, he moved to Seattle and took a job as a child care worker until his love for photography led him in another direction.

“The thing about photography is, it just kind of came naturally and it was fun,” he said. “I don’t think I had any other choice.”

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    Many of the press corps photographers on the campaign trail are on assignment, being paid by news outlets.

    Not Gowdy.

    Up until February 2016, he was completely on his own, paying his own expenses and saving money any way possible. Sometimes that meant sleeping in the rental car, surviving on fast food, staying at an Airbnb or with a friend. To cover expenses for one trip, his mother had to float him a small cash loan.

    Why all the sacrifices? “This campaign is historic,” Gowdy said. “We’ve never seen anything like this before, and at first I didn’t care if anything got published. It was like, ‘Let’s just get the pictures.’ ”

    His first assignment filing photos on deadline was for Time magazine. After he got hooked up with Time, things changed.

    “I was totally green,” he said, “and I had a press badge for Time, which was like, ‘Yeah, I have a golden ticket!’ ” CNN also was one of Gowdy’s early employers on the campaign trail.

    As his photos began to get widely published, it blew Gowdy’s mind when a photographer for a major national newspaper recognized him and told him he liked his work. “It really makes you feel like part of the club, you know, like you’re in the loop,” Gowdy said.

    ‘I just got the cover of Time magazine’

    In May 2016, Time hired Gowdy to cover U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders speaking at a rally in Santa Monica, California. He took a photo of the presidential candidate from behind, standing on a stage, holding a hat and a folder in his left hand. His right hand is outstretched in the air toward the people.

    The next day, Gowdy checked his email as his flight touched down at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. He blurted out to the stranger in the seat next to him, “I think I just got the cover of Time magazine.”

    Looking back on it, Gowdy said, “It was probably the most excited I’ve ever been.”

    Some of Gowdy’s photos from the primary campaign bring surprises. In one, presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump is shown in an extreme black-and-white close-up.

    “I think he’s identified by his hair so often,” Gowdy said. “And I like how I cropped so there’s no Donald Trump hair in that image. But you still know who it is.”

    In another of Gowdy’s images, presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton is shown being photographed by supporters.

    “When she’s out greeting supporters, and they want selfies, Hillary is the only candidate I’ve noticed that takes their phones and takes the selfies,” Gowdy said. “It’s just kind of a metaphor for how in control in this campaign she is of her image. You don’t see other candidates taking the phones from supporters.”

    A photo Gowdy shot of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and his daughter Caroline in Wisconsin made him feel a little bit like a member of the paparazzi.

    “I’m not sure I like the feeling,” he said. “But you could tell she was used to it because the cameras don’t faze her at all, which is so unnatural to me. You have this child who is totally immune to it, and he asked for a bite of her gelato and she really didn’t want to give up her gelato.”

    Former GOP candidate Jeb Bush “was the most real of all the candidates,” Gowdy said. “He doesn’t have the sales pitch the way the others do and he’s not as scripted. The crowds wanted him to be riled up, and he was just so wonky.

    “Of all of them I met, I think I liked him the most. It was really interesting because my politics don’t align with him, but as a person and after seeing all these other candidates I would have figured he would have been the most qualified on the Republican end of the spectrum.”

    ‘Rabidly enthusiastic’

    So now – after following the candidates through many of the primary states – Gowdy is looking forward to covering his first presidential conventions in July.

    He’s expecting the unexpected.

    “People get pretty rabidly enthusiastic about their candidates,” he said.

    For the GOP event, he’s bringing a bulletproof vest and a helmet, just in case. “I expect it to be kind of raucous,” he said.

    Gowdy says, in general, he’s always interested in getting more pictures of the candidates. “But I enjoy photographing the supporters more.”

    “What I’ve found is I like a lot of these people I’m meeting,” he said. “I’m a people person, and people are people,” regardless of their politics. “I really enjoy capturing the people who believe in these candidates.”

    Nate Gowdy is a photographer based in Seattle. You can follow him on Facebook and Instagram.