NEWSLETTER

INTERVIEW BY JESSE PEARSON


Robert F. Kennedy assasination. Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles, 1968

Click here for a slide show of some of Benson's best shots.

I know that Lord Beaverbrook gave you what you consider the best advice you’ve ever gotten regarding your subjects, right?

He said, “Flattery: Put it on with a shovel.” And he was right. That’s what people want to hear when you’re photographing them. They want to hear, “Oh, I enjoyed the movie,” even though it was a piece of shit. You know what I mean? But I don’t talk to people much while I’m taking their picture. If I’m going to photograph you, and you ask me to dinner the night before, I won’t go. I don’t want you to start weighing me and figuring me out. You might say, “So where will you want to photograph me?” And I could say, “Well, that swimming pool you’ve got there—I’d love to photograph you in there with all your dogs.” So you say that it’s a great idea, but then your wife reminds you of that urban renewal program that took away swimming pools for underprivileged children. And then guess who’s not going into the swimming pool for a photo the next morning? We’ll end up in the library instead.

If you come along without having prepped them, then they have less time to second-guess your ideas.

It needs to be spontaneous with the subjects. Also, if they call me afterward saying, “Oh Harry, would you come and have dinner tonight?” I get them off the phone as quick as I can. I don’t want someone like Jack Nicholson saying to me, “That picture of me in the bubble bath… please don’t use it.” Now I’ve got a problem because they’re my new best friend. I tell all the reporters I work with, “Please don’t bring me into anything. Tell them I’ve disappeared and my pictures are all back in New York.”

If they can get close to you, they can try and put their agenda on you.

Yeah, and their agenda is no good. I want them in the bubble bath, you know?

How do you prepare for a shoot? Do you research the subject?

Not much. I’ll just know who they are. Doing too much research can lead a photographer or a writer to get overwrought. As a photographer, it’s good to be spontaneous and keep them moving. If you have them standing still for too long, rigor mortis sets in. You can see it in their eyes.

You have to be good with people to do what you do.

If I can’t get on with somebody for just an hour or two, there’s something wrong with me. I don’t go in there with any attitude and I don’t go in there with a bunch of assistants. I usually go by myself. Also, photographers have got a habit of turning up looking like maintenance men. I remember another photographer saying to me at the White House once, “Why were you invited to the second floor, to the private quarters, and we weren’t?” I said, “It’s simple. Because you’re all dressed like shit. I wouldn’t let you in my house. Look at you.” I wear a suit and a tie and I’m showing respect not only to the subject but to the magazine or newspaper I’m representing. I can put lenses in my pockets and that’s all I need. And now, I’m still the same piece of shit, the same predatory thing walking about, but the other photographers are dressed like they’ve come to fix the electricity.

What do you think of the state of magazine photography today?

Too many pictures today are like artifacts. Everything is so set up. Like Annie Leibovitz—there’s no life there. It’s like Madame Tussauds.

I really hope that sort of portraiture goes out of style soon and stays out of style forever.

And another thing that sort of photography did was to make all these younger photographers think, “I must go and set up all of these lights and have three assistants.” Bullshit. I do think that it is dying now, though.

Is digital photography a good way to counteract all this overproduced stuff?

I think it’s magic. It’s given my own work new life.

It’s also maybe allowed some bad things to happen, like the hyper-celebrity-stalking paparazzi.

I don’t know. If I were an agent in Hollywood, I’d say to my clients, “You should go to the supermarket and wear your sexiest clothes and come out holding a big salami.” Instead of that, they get all dressed up for the Academy Awards and then they get criticized for the dress that they wore. It’s crazy.

So they should learn how to manipulate the paparazzi to get good shots of themselves in the magazines. That’s a new way of looking at it.

They should be paying the paparazzi! To me it’s a no-brainer.


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