First Person Harry Benson RFK Photographer / BBC World News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UICDj10UblY
40 years ago Robert F. Kennedy was shot while campaigning in Los Angeles. Harry Benson was the photographer that was within feet of RFK that fateful evening. Benson talks about what he saw then and how it affects him to this day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Benson
Harry James Benson (born 2 December 1929) is a Scottish photographer. His photographs of celebrities have been published in magazines. He has published several books and won a number of prominent awards.
Benson was born in Glasgow and raised in Troon, Scotland.
His pictures have appeared in Life,Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker. He took over a hundred cover shots for People.
Benson was assigned to travel with The Beatles on their inaugural American tour in 1964. One of his most recognisable images shows the band in a gleeful pillow fight at the hotel Georges V[3][4] in Paris.[5] Other celebrities Benson has photographed include Bobby Fischer, Michael Jackson, who allowed him access to his bedroom, and Elizabeth Taylor, whom Benson photographed before and after her brain surgery. He has also photographed political figures, including every U.S. president since Dwight D. Eisenhower, and covered war zones. Benson was standing next to Robert F. Kennedy when the senator was shot on 5 June 1968 and has remarked on the difficulty of steeling himself to document the historic moment: "I kept telling myself 'this is for history, pull yourself together, fail tomorrow, not today.
Benson has been the subject of many exhibitions, including one organised by the Scottish National Portrait Galley at the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution.
Benson was the recipient of the 2005 Lucie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Portrait Photography and the 2005 American Photo Award for Photography.[8] He has twice been named Magazine Photographer of the Year by the National Press Photographers Association (1981 and 1985). He was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Scottish Press Photography Awards in April 2006.[9] Benson was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society in 2009. Benson was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours In 2014 he took an official photographic portrait of the Queen, commissioned by the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. This was more than fifty years after his first portrait of the Queen, taken when she opened a coal mine in 1957.
He is the subject of a BBC Scotland documentary titled Photography: Harry Benson (1985), directed by Ken MacGregor and written by William McIlvanney and of the 2015 documentary Shoot First directed by Matthew Miele and Justin Bare.
He and his wife, Gigi, have two daughters: the American actress Wendy Benson and Tessa Benson. Harry has 3 grandchildren and lives in New York and Palm Beach, Florida. His nephew was the journalist Ross Benson
https://harrybenson.com/
https://harrybenson.com/books
https://www.taschen.com/pages/en/search/harry-benson
Photographer Harry Benson on Working with The Beatles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=HCSVeKLxAoE&feature=emb_title
RIGHT NEXT DOOR: Interview with Harry Benson, legendary photographer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-at1FUEEv0
There's a World Record holder living three houses down your street. Next door, there’s a carpenter from HBO's The Sopranos television show living in blissful suburban obscurity. Two blocks over lives the air traffic controller who guided Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger’s airliner to a miraculous landing in the Hudson River. Stories like these are everywhere, in every neighborhood, but do we know they’re so close? Do we really know who our neighbors are? Right Next Door will introduce the concept that we don’t just see amazing human beings on television or read about them in the newspaper. They’re all around us, and many live far closer than we think.
Harry Benson Discusses The Documentary About His Life As A Photographer, "Shoot First"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjPrbtOT6EY
‘Shoot First” takes viewers through the career of Harry Benson. With unprecedented access, the former photographer of The Beatles has had a significant impact on history snapping photos of everyone from Winston Churchill to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Muhammad Ali. Interview at AOL HQ in NYC for BUILD Series.
Harry Benson: Photographers in Focus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZJ509Q8oxo
Harry Benson: Legendary Photographer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TIYqNZV1ic
HARRY BENSON
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Harry Benson’s epochal portraits and incisive photojournalism have made him one of the most celebrated photographers of the 20th century. Growing up in Scotland during World War II, Benson sought refuge and dreamed of another life though the lens of a camera. His images of celebrities, politicians, and monarchs capture the zeitgeist as well as the spark of unique personalities. TASCHEN titles featuring Benson’s work include a publication dedicated to her majesty, Queen Elizabeth II and an incredible book which collects together his photographs of The Beatles.
Benson rose to fame after being assigned to travel with The Beatles on a journey to France and their first trip to America in 1964. In signature black and white photography, Benson took one of the most iconic shots of the Fab Four, which depicts the stars engaged in a raucous pillow fight at the George V Hotel. As Beatlemania exploded Benson juxtaposed intimate images like the hotel room photograph with depictions of their new found celebrity, such as their famous performance on the Ed Sullivan Show. The photographer’s mix of public and private pictures became his distinguishing trademark.
His portfolio includes cover shots and editorials for LIFE, Vanity Fair, People and The New Yorker and in 2009 he was awarded the title Commander of the British Empire (CBE). As well as The Beatles, he has photographed Michael Jackson, Liz Taylor, Robert Kennedy, and every US president since Eisenhower. Benson’s images feature in TASCHEN’s photography book of images of the Queen which also includes a unique special edition cover created by British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood. Harry Benson seems to have always been in the right place at the right
time. This crucial punctuality has given us some of the most significant pictures of the history making moments of last century and the beginning of the 21st.