Johnson Arrives for 1960 Democratic National Convention 1960

Leigh Wiener took this photograph of Johnson arriving for the 1960 Democratic National Convention. You can see the energy, the chaos, the staged choreography of it all. I imagine Wiener was in the thick of it, jostling for the best angle, light meter in hand, waiting for Johnson to emerge. I wonder what he was thinking. It feels like he wanted to expose the layers of celebrity: LBJ but also the mass of photographers ready to snap him. The reflection on the car bonnet almost hints at what lurks beneath the surface. I feel like the photograph almost admits its own constructedness. It’s not trying to be objective; instead, it captures the moment, preserving it in shades of gray, and yet it leaves so much unsaid. Like a painting almost! I think Robert Frank would have liked this. It definitely shares that post-war rawness and interest in the spectacle of it all. Anyway, food for thought.