Harry Benson CBE
The BeaTles landing in the Usa, the assassination of Robert F Kennedy, the building (and eventual destruction) of the Berlin Wall, the Meredith march with Martin luther King, and the Watergate scandal – all these major events were captured superbly by the lens of legendary portrait photographer and photojournalist harry Benson CBe.
Benson hails from Glasgow, scotland, and began his career at the Hamilton Advertiser newspaper before moving to the scottish Daily Sketch. By 1959 he was working for the Daily Express out of its london offices. he travelled to the Usa with the Beatles in 1964 and never came back. he was contracted to Life magazine for 30 years, but shot for many more of the world’s biggest magazines including Time, Vanity Fair, Newsweek, Paris Match, Forbes, People and The Sunday Times Magazine. Benson’s iconic images have been exhibited around the world in 40 solo exhibitions, and thus far, there have been 16 books of his photographs published. he has also been the subject of the 1985 BBC documentary Photography: Harry Benson, and more recently, the 2016 documentary film Harry Benson: Shoot First, which chronicled his extensive career.
his first published photograph, of a roe deer, was published in the Glasgow Evening Times an astonishing 71 years ago, and his immense body of work includes the legendary 1964 ‘ The Pillow Fight’ photo of the Beatles, which Time included in its list of ‘100 Photos: The Most Influential Images of all Time.’
Benson’s prolific career has also spanned decades of camera technology – from starting out working with plate cameras and glass negatives; through to mediumformat cameras; film slRs; and his digital cameras today, which he describes as ‘magic’. In other words, he quickly honed his skills to make sure he got the shot because, in the beginning, he only had 12 glass negatives to play with and one of those had to be the shot.
Benson’s arrival in the Usa in 1964, on the plane that flew the Beatles to New York, proved to be a pivotal point in his career. In fact, he still lives in New York City. shortly after arriving in the Usa he was inspired by the pictorial possibilities the country offered him – from covering the american civil rights movement in the 1960s to the tragic events of the 9/11 attacks in his chosen home city of New York in 2001. Benson‘s photographic career has often switched between his
‘ The people captured by Benson’s cameras are icons from the world of politics, sport, music, film... ’
gritty reportage work and his spontaneous celebrity portraiture, usually shot on location. He eschews shooting studio portraits if at all possible, and the quality of his more natural-location portraits bears testament to that approach.
The people captured by Benson’s cameras are icons from the world of politics, sport, music, film and entertainment. They have included President John F Kennedy, Muhammad Ali, Dr Martin Luther King Jr, Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor, Andy Warhol, HM The Queen, the Rolling Stones and countless other famous faces.
He has photographed the past 12 US presidents – from Dwight D Eisenhower to Donald J Trump – and was standing at the side of Senator Robert F Kennedy in 1968 when the presidential candidate was brutally assassinated in the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles. Immediately switching into work mode Benson documented the aftermath of Kennedy’s slaying, thus demonstrating his dedication to his craft, even in the most trying of circumstances. Harry’s resourcefulness, resilience and occasional recklessness have served him well during his career, and they continue to do so to this day.
In the 21st century Benson’s work and achievements have been widely acknowledged, including the award of a CBE for his services to photography in the 2009 New Year Honours list. In the same year, he was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society.
Despite being 88 years old, Benson still continues to work, often on book projects. His most recent retrospective tome, Persons of Interest (2017), tells the fascinating stories behind dozens of his iconic images, shot from 1957 right up to 2016.
It’s with great honour that AP presents this Exceptional Achievement in Photography Award to Harry Benson: a photographer with a body of work that few, if any, can match. He is truly a man who, through his skill and tenacity, has captured history as it happened and has left an everlasting record of it for future generations..