Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Wednesday, May 24. I’m Kent Nishimura, a staff photographer for the Los Angeles Times based out of Washington. I cover politics and national news.

The exercise of photographing a U.S. senator is a bit like a game of cat and mouse.

The photographers and reporters of the Capitol Hill press corps patiently mill about in case a person, most likely in a blue suit (or sometimes a hoodie) with a phalanx of staff, breezes by. That’s when we strike.

In these brief moments, we create the postcards of history.

But the Capitol complex is a maze — full of hideaways, tunnels, subways, staircases and doors opening into rooms that spill into an unfamiliar hallway. When members of Congress want to avoid reporters and photographers, they have a number of options.