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- A Tibetan man with his son, holding a picture of the Dalai Lama
The head monk at the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet, assured Patrick Leahy that, despite the signs everywhere prohibiting photography, His Holiness the Dalai Lama said it was fine for the Democratic senator from Vermont to take all the photos he liked. After all, they were friends. During that visit in 1988, Leahy recalled in a recent interview, nearby members of the Chinese secret police were told that their cameras would be seized if they took their own photos. They pointed at Leahy and said, "But he's doing it." The monk just smiled and said, "No, he's not."
The exceptional position of a deeply respected U.S. senator — who, as he insists, is not a professional photographer but always happens to have a camera with him — has yielded Leahy a vast archive of photographs from his 48 years in office. Fifty-three of them are currently on view in the exhibition "The Eye of Senator Patrick Leahy: Photographs of a Witness to History" at the Vermont Supreme Court Gallery in Montpelier.
The exhibition is neither chronological nor grouped by subject matter. Portraits of presidents and U.S. Supreme Court justices mingle with those of ordinary people. A photo of then-president Bill Clinton's jacket draped over the back of his chair on Air Force One is formally quite beautiful, an arrangement of blocks of color and line. A picture of kids flying a kite off the edge of a cliff in Afghanistan is breathtaking in its sense of vertigo, lightness and joy.
Only one person could have been in a position to take all these images.
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- A Vietnamese land mine victim
Perhaps the most direct evidence of Leahy's unique perspective is his photographs of bill signings, taken from over the presidents' shoulders. While media shots framing these ceremonies from the front are standard, Leahy's images show the president's hand (Ronald Reagan, righty; Clinton and Barack Obama, lefties), along with the signatures on the bill. The latter often included Leahy's, when he was (twice) president pro tempore of the Senate.
Leahy's iconic, color-saturated photo of Reagan's second inauguration looks like a history painting. Because of bitterly cold weather that day in January 1985, White House staff moved the ceremony indoors to the Capitol Rotunda at the last minute. In the shuffle, Leahy found himself standing directly in front.
"That particular photograph went all over the world," Vermont state curator David Schutz said, "and became the image of Ronald Reagan's second inaugural that was most commonly printed."
Other images in the exhibition let us into the room where it happens. In a series labeled "2010, Washington, DC," we see then-senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut explain, to then-president Obama and a closed-door conference of senators, why he was withdrawing crucial support for the Affordable Care Act bill. The images, taken seconds apart, leave no doubt as to Obama's reaction. The last image cuts to then-vice president Joe Biden giving Leahy a knowing look; he had caught the Vermont lawmaker out as the source of the clicking shutter.
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- President Barack Obama on Air Force One
Though many of Leahy's photographs have been exhibited and published before, this show comes at a consequential time for both the recently retired politician and the community.
Leahy is "wonderfully reflective right now," Schutz said. He's able to spend time looking at his trove of photographs and remembering the circumstances of each one. Schutz is working with archivists at the University of Vermont to document Leahy's stories, ideally in his own voice, for future exhibitions.
Former Vermont Supreme Court justice Marilyn Skoglund, who has long curated exhibitions in the court's lobby gallery, said she planned this one as a welcome return since Montpelier's devastating flood last July. "I just thought it was a great person to start with for the reopening of the gallery," she said, "and that people would be excited about the opportunity to come in and see his work."
Leahy uses his photos not only to tell stories — and they all have stories — but also to serve as touchstones for the causes he has promoted over a long legislative career. He kept one image of a refugee from El Salvador over the desk in his Washington, D.C., office, he said, calling it his "conscience photo." The arresting portrait confronts the viewer, asking, as Leahy put it, "What have you done for poor and powerless people today?"
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- Leahy's "conscience photo" of a man at a refugee camp in El Salvador
Sharing the image has helped the former senator strengthen support for refugees around the world. U2 vocalist Bono, who is also a human rights activist, was deeply moved by the picture, Leahy said, so he gave him a copy. The two have maintained a friendship ever since.
Both Obama and former Cuban president Raúl Castro received copies of the photograph Leahy took in 2014 of Alan Gross and his wife following the activist's release from imprisonment in Cuba — which Leahy helped secure. The image is a testament to the impact of fostering cooperation between the two countries.
Overall, "The Eye of Senator Patrick Leahy" conveys the significance of participation as well as observation, and underscores the idea that photography itself can be a form of action.
Asked what he'd like viewers to take away from his exhibition, Leahy offered this advice: "Take your time when you see something. What does it mean to you? Don't worry about getting yourself in the picture; take things that might mean something to you."