Archiving History

Located along Salamander Middleburg’s Grand Hallway, these 10 photographs show case the work of legendary photographer Harry Benson and is kindly on loan from the collection of Ted and Lynn Leons is to Salamander Middleburg Owner Sheila Johnson. The captions were written by Benson and his wife, Gigi.

Holder of what is believed to be the largest photographic archive of any photographer, Harry Benson has spent more than seven decades inches from power, fame and upheaval, capturing the moments that define how the world remembers itself.

Born in Glasgow in 1929, Benson published his first photograph at 16 and cut his teeth on London’s brutal Fleet Street. Everything changed in 1964, when he was assigned to accompany ­the Beatles on their first trip to America. Th­e resulting images didn’t merely document Beatlemania, they helped define it.

Since then, he has photographed 13 U.S. presidents, from Eisenhower to Trump, along with Winston Churchill, Queen Elizabeth II, Martin Luther King Jr., Andy Warhol, Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, ­The Rolling Stones, and Amy Winehouse. His portraits are unguarded and immediate, revealing not
just fame but humanity.

Benson has marched with Dr. King, covered wars in Bosnia, Afghanistan, and the Gulf, documented the rise of the IRA, and stood just feet from Robert F. Kennedy the night he was assassinated.

Honors followed, though Benson wears them lightly. In 2009, Queen Elizabeth II appointed him a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. He is a two-time NPPA Magazine Photographer of the Year, a recipient of the Leica Medal of Excellence, and a Lifetime Achievement Award honoree from the International Center of Photography. He holds honorary doctorates from three institutions, “not bad,” he quips, “for a boy who left school at thirteen.”

A 20-year tenure at Life magazine placed Benson at the center of the publication’s golden age. His work has since appeared in Time, Vanity Fair, Vogue, GQ, Esquire, Paris Match and Architectural Digest. His photographs are held in permanent collections including the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, the National Portrait Galleries in London and Edinburgh, and the International Photography Hall of Fame. His life became the subject of the documentary “Harry Benson: Shoot First,” now streaming on Netflix and Hulu.

From palace corridors to protest lines, from backstage chaos to moments of national trauma, Benson doesn’t photograph history from a distance. He steps inside it, presses the shutter, and leaves behind images that will forever define history.  

ATLANTA,GEORGIA, 1968

In April 4, 1968 amidst rising racial tension Dr Martin Luther King Jr. was shot while on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. America was shocked, stunned, and again thrown into the nightmare of violent death and public agony not five years after President John F. Kennedy's assassination in Dallas.

Being on an assignment nearby I immediately flew to Memphis and then on to Atlanta to cover the funeral. Arriving in advance of the plane that was carrying the body of the slain civil rights leader, I moved out of the photographer's allotted area onto the tarmac for a moment and caught one frame of his widow, Loretta Scott King and their children as they prepared to step down from the plane. 

WASHINGTON NATIONAL AIRPORT, 1971

I was walking through Washington National Airport on my way to catch a shuttle flight back to New York City when I noticed a man, obviously in pain, sitting with a folded American flag on his lap. He told me his son had been killed in Vietnam and had just been buried in Arlington National Cemetery. His grief was overwhelming and to me it was the story of the Vietnam war. 

THE WHITE HOUSE, 1978

In the private quarters on the second floor of the White House, the president and first lady prepare for a state dinner while eleven-year-old daughter, Amy, ready for bed in her pajamas, intently watches. 

THE WHITE HOUSE, 2009

During my day at the White House in 2009, the president stood outside the White House to shake hands with fans. Unfortunately, I did not get the chance to photograph First Lady Michelle Obama on this day, hopefully I will get the chance some time. 

AUSTIN, TEXAS, 1999

On the porch of the Governor's Mansion in Austin with a before descendant of his mother's famous dog, Millie, by his side, the president and first lady elect were preparing for move into the White House for the next eight years. The 43rd president had not an inkling that ultimately 9/11, the search for Osama bin Laden, and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would be his presidential legacy.