Photo by Bo Erickson A photo taken Wednesday by CBS News journalist and Marshall High School alumnus Bo Erickson shows Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Sen. Lisa Murkowski having an intense-looking conversation in the Capitol basement. Erickson’s photo went viral on social media and was featured on TV news programs like “CBS This Morning.”

It was a moment Bo Erickson wasn’t expecting to capture: U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Lisa Murkowski having an intense-looking conversation in the Capitol basement, a day before the Senate Judiciary Committee was to hear testimony on sexual assault allegations against U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

“They are so central to the story right now,” Erickson said. Feinstein (D-CA) was the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, while Murkowski (R-AK) was one of the undecided Republican senators who could determine whether Kavanaugh was confirmed as a Supreme Court justice. So Erickson took a picture, which would go on to get a lot of media attention.

“I don’t know what they were talking about,” Erickson said of the photo. “I asked, but there was no comment from them.”

Now the photo is a bit of history with a Marshall connection. Erickson is a 2013 Marshall High School graduate, who is now a producer with the CBS News Capitol Hill team. This week, the team’s coverage has been focused on Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, as well as additional allegations of sexual assault that were brought forward against Kavanaugh.

“We knew this was going to be a big story,” Erickson said. This week he and other news team members were doing “stakeouts” of legislators on Capitol Hill, trying to get comment from them.

The photo of Feinstein and Murkowski was something that happened by chance, Erickson said. On Wednesday afternoon, “We were right in the middle of staking everyone out,” he said. He went to quickly get something to eat from one of the cafeterias in the Capitol basement, and saw Feinstein and Murkowski talking near an elevator bank.

“I did a double-take, turned on a dime,” and took a couple of quick photos he sent to the Capitol Hill news team, Erickson said. The photo ended up going viral on social media. A couple of hours after he tweeted it, Erickson said, activity on his Twitter post “had just skyrocketed.”

The next day, Erickson’s photo was shown and discussed on “CBS This Morning.” Some of the commentary on the photo focused on Feinstein’s body language. In Erickson’s shot, Feinstein was leaning one hand on the wall close to Murkowski’s head. “CBS This Morning” co-host John Dickerson said it reminded people of the “Johnson Treatment” — President Lyndon Johnson’s tactic of leaning into others’ personal space.

At the time he took the picture, Erickson said, he didn’t really think about the power of Feinstein’s pose. He was more surprised that the two senators would be talking in such an open, high-traffic place. However, he did think some of Dickerson’s comments about the significance of the photo were interesting.

On “CBS This Morning,” Dickerson said, “It’s not Lyndon Johnson and Senator Russell . . . It is two women leaders of the Senate. That’s the history that we’re in the middle of right now.”

Erickson said being part of the CBS Capitol Hill news team has been a great opportunity.

After graduating from MHS, Erickson went on to The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

“I knew I liked politics and journalism,” he said, so he pursued that dream. He interned with NBC News, CBS News and NPR, before working for CBS News full time.

“I feel lucky that I get to be part of such a heralded Capitol Hill team,” that works with journalists like chief congressional correspondent Nancy Cordes and political correspondent Ed O’Keefe, he said.

“It is long days, but it is worth it,” Erickson said of covering Capitol Hill politics. “There is a lot of news, and your subjects are walking the halls with you all the time.”