HOW TO GO
What: "Behind the Scenes in American Politics With PF Bentley"
Where: Dayton Art Institute, 456 Belmonte N., Dayton
When: 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 18
Cost: $30 (discounts available for groups and active military)
More info: (937) 223-4ART (278) or www.daytonartinstitute.org
As a prize-winning photographer for Time magazine, PF Bentley has intimately photographed nearly every U.S. president since Ronald Reagan. Bentley will be relating the context of many of his images as part of the Arts Night Out series at the Dayton Art Institute on Thursday.
Asked what his most memorable moments were during a period where he was allowed an unusual amount of access to political figures, it’s probably not a surprise that the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks sticks in his memory.
“Those days were intense, and the most bipartisan I’ve ever seen,” he said. “I remember a time when George W. Bush bent his head in prayer, and I was struck by the fact that he was comfortable enough to do that with me in there.”
Bentley covered not only Bill Clinton’s first presidential run in 1991-92 but the elongated handover of power to Bush in the early days of 2001.
“There was a 10-day farewell period,” Bentley said. “And what was funny was that on the trip from the White House to (Capitol) Hill, there were 80 cars. From the Hill to Andrews (Air Force Base), there were 10 cars. When he landed in New York, it was down to two cars. I remembered how he only had two cars back in New Hampshire in 1991. So it had come full circle. At the end, though, he was upbeat, looking forward to his new life.”
As you may have guessed by now, Bentley is not a political man, something of an anomaly considering his subject matter and the near universal complaint that the American media has been hijacked by pundits and infotainers.
“I’m just there to record history,” he said. “I had the trust of both parties, so I could cover both behind closed doors. I was honored to be in on whatever they allowed. Until you’re in that job (of president), you have no idea how hard it is. It makes them all go gray, or grayer.”
Many of Bentley’s political images are in black and white, an artistic choice that took some convincing when it came to his Time employers.
“It’s kind of a throwback, an archival (motif) from the days of JFK,” he said. “I wanted it to have its own look. I wanted people to see the content without the color.”
Bentley occasionally armors his subjects in shadow, making them look, depending on the context, humble or leonine. (There’s a shot of Bob Dole’s head that could be mistaken for a bust). By capturing his subjects when they’re not being scrutinized by a live or television audience, Bentley illuminates the human beings behind the carefully managed public figures, such as Chelsea Clinton extending her tongue like any brassy teenager, or Bill and Hillary Clinton sitting on a plane, holding hands across the aisle and sharing an us-against-the-world look.
“And that was in 1991,” Bentley chuckled. “I happened to turn around and see it and took it real quick, just two frames. (Bill Clinton’s) favorite picture of mine was of him sitting on a couch, alone, looking tired. He liked it because it shows the toll the campaign takes on you. He cared more about history than how he looked.”
Bentley has also covered political events from around the world, from Central America to the Far East. His website features several shots from his time spent covering the decade-long civil war in El Salvador.
“I got good at ducking under cars,” Bentley joked, then added, “Unless it was a car bomb. My biggest injury was spraining my ankle when I was walking backward, shooting, and I tripped. All Time heard was that I’d been ‘injured,’ and assumed the worst. When I talked to them, I said, ‘I’d like to tell you I got a serious war wound, but I just fell off a curb.’ ”
Bentley said he might be getting too old for such adventures. He has visited countries enjoying more peaceful climes as well, such as Vietnam in 1994.
“I had a great time,” he said. “I visited the places you always heard about, like Hanoi and Saigon. The country was opening up. There were lots of good people and good food. A lot of (the Vietnamese) were younger. They didn’t care about the war.”
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