In Young Guns 4 winner Emily Shur’s latest blog post, the photographer provides a personal account of what it was like to photograph Sarah Palin for the cover of Newsweek.

“This was one of those surreal moments we have as photographers where we are checking our light, composing the frame, making sure everything is right and tight, but in the back of our heads the thoughts are more along the lines of, ‘What the hell is happening here?!!! I am at Sarah Palin’s house in Wasilla, Alaska photographing her by myself, she’s by herself, and we’re talking about our dogs and the fact that we have the same cell phone and Alaskan wildflowers and where she grew up and all sorts of run of the mill stuff.’ The main thing I had to keep a grip on was not rushing which is my natural inclination in times like these. I didn’t know how long I had with her. To be honest, the fact that the shoot was even happening was surprising to me,” writes Shur.

Read the entire post here.

Follow Emily @EmilyShur

-TP