From left, Elizabeth and Bob Dole along with Gerald Ford and his wife, Betty, greet the massive crowd at Kemper Arena in 1976. The photo was taken during the Republican National Convention that year.

Watching the Democrats in Denver this week brought back some old memories of covering the 1976 Republican National Convention in Kansas City as a young photojournalist.

Getting into events back then was much easier. It just took ambition and drive – and some long hours. You didn’t need a fancy portfolio to get a job – your hard work and good pictures pretty much said it all.

To cover an event like that, you have to have the drive to move around and look for images of important people and things that stand out. If you shoot from the same places other photographers do, your pictures will look pretty much the same. You might as well have the Associated Press or another news service do the work.

Today’s photojournalist has a pretty good time – seeing the image, send it back with a laptop and not worry about hazardous darkroom chemicals.

So much has changed since that 1976 convention.