with bemused intent as a potential voter gesticulates; aides clowning; kids playing; all that.
At the same time, there is an undercurrent of melancholy, enforced by the machines and the shadows, and read in the faces of the principals even as they smile. On some level, Bentley's photographs are not images of a campaign, but rather of people involved in, and trapped by, a campaign. They did not invent the process in which they are participating. They are traditionalists operating within a convention, and they must make the convention their own. Think what it must be like, embarking on the endless series of talks, embraces, conferences, interviews, photographs--the repetition of questions and observations; the repetition of jokes and "spontaneous'' wisecracks;
