It was virtually impossible to miss Rep. Blake Farenthold at the 52nd Annual CQ Roll Call Congressional Baseball Game, and it wasn’t because he was sporting an Aloha shirt emblazoned with all things Texas Rangers.

It was the 350-millimeter lens he was pointing every which way at Nationals Park.
The Texas Republican told HOH he’s been a shutterbug for decades, noting that he took lots of candid shots for his high school yearbook and had a dark room at home while growing up. The passion only intensified once he became a parent, a move that prompted him to invest in his first professional grade camera, a Canon EOS 5D Mark II.

Farenthold has since graduated to a Canon EOS 1D Mark IV, which was the eye-catching apparatus he kept training all around the diamond during the June 13 matchup.
“Really, I took it just to have something to do with my hands,” Farenthold said, though it sounds like the high-tech gadget made quite an impression on fellow lawmakers — particularly Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa.

“Shuster named it the ‘Mac Daddy’,” Farenthold shared of his colleague’s take on the motorized memory maker.
Farenthold said he keeps the camera at the office for snapshots with visiting constituents, but also carries around a 12 megapixel point-and-shoot for chronicling life on Capitol Hill on the fly.
Still, there are certain scenes he’d love to haul out the big monster for.
His current wish list includes:
- Shooting sunrise/sunset from atop the Capitol dome;
- Capturing the view from the Capitol after a major snowfall;
- Getting up close and personal with the Washington Monument while it’s undergoing renovations.
Until those magic moments materialize, we’ll have to make do with this member’s-eye-view of last week’s game:



