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But Bennett is spending this week far from home, in Reykjavík, the capital of Iceland, representing Team USA in the 2026 World Photographic Cup.
That’s because a photo he snapped two years ago in downtown Charleston was one of the top four images in its category for this year’s International Photographic Competition.
From there, he was invited to join Team USA.
All from a photo he almost didn’t take.
“Rain Noir II” was the winning shot that catapulted Perry Bennett to international competition on Team USA.
Photo Credit: Perry Bennett Photography
Getting The Shot
It was a rainy April in 2024. The USA Cycling Pro Road National Championships were underway in Charleston. But the weather radar looked ominous and Perry Bennett wasn’t sure he was up for it.
“I was like, ‘Do I even want to go mess with it? I could just stay home and be, you know, warm and dry,’” Bennett said.
But it was a big national – really international – event, the precursor to the Olympics that year, with some big name cyclists. So Bennett grabbed his weather-sealed camera gear and multiple lenses he would need as night began to fall.
“I came across this one corner where I figured there’d be a lot of action. It was Quarrier Street coming onto Hale Street, and it was a really, really tight corner. So the cyclists were going really fast and coming up on this really tight corner and really tight turn,” Bennett said. “And I figured there were either going to be, you know, a big wreck that happened there, or it could be really cool with some of the backlighting.”
As the rain came down, the umbrellas went up, partially blocking his view.
“I crossed the road and went down a little bit and was able to frame the shot where there were some people with umbrellas, kind of framing it on one side. It was nice and backlit from the big spotlights,” he said.
“On one side, you got the cyclists coming around the corner. And luckily, with that lens and with the camera, they would have a high enough shutter speed to freeze the action and get the riders kind of backlit,” Bennett said.
Ironically, with all of the big names, none of the cyclists are actually identifiable. That added some mystery and made the photo more universal.
“You don’t really know who it is, but it’s this dark photo of the cyclists at night in the rain, you know, in Charleston. And end up being such a cool image,” he said.
Team USA
When he posted a series of the photos on social media later that night, the response was immediate – and notably bigger than usual.
“An abnormally high number of people kind of gravitated to these few photos that I had taken and posted, and just really were kind of gushing over them,” Bennett said. “And so when it came time the next year to enter those into a competition, I was like, ‘I’ve got to enter one of those into the competition.’ And that was, ended up doing really well.”
The photo he chose is black and white. Race Noir II landed him a spot on Team USA. He already knows he didn’t place in the final of the competition – a mild bummer in the grand scheme of things, he said, but he felt it was important to be there anyway, for a couple of reasons.
“For one, I’m the first West Virginian to be on Team USA for the World Photographic Cup, which is very exciting. But also, I might not be on Team USA ever again in the future,” Bennett said.
Several other members of Team USA did place in the top 10 for their categories, and a few placed in the top 3.
“So I’m hoping that we can pull out an overall win, so Team USA can be on top of the World Photographic Cup, and I want to be there for that,” Bennett said.
Picture Perfect Career
His selection to Team USA is the latest in a long career of, well, picture perfect moments – many of them snapped under the famous gold dome of the West Virginia Capitol. A few of them, actually, on top of the gold dome as it was undergoing renovations just a few years ago.
His closeups of the process show a bird’s-eye view of bright gold strips being painted on.
“I’ve got hundreds and hundreds of photos and time lapse videos of them disassembling what they call the spring line, and that’s where the dome comes down, and then it comes down again,” Bennett said.
“That little secondary shelf there is the spring line, and that’s where the water was coming into the capitol, making its way into the end of the rotunda and destroying the inside of the building. When they reassembled the spring line, they had to regild it, re-add the gold leaf to it,” he added.
Documenting anything from the sky-high top of the West Virginia Capitol was not exactly an easy assignment for a guy who admits to a fear of heights. Loaded with his own gear, he had to climb the scaffold and document the process.
“We just take advantage of being able to see it. ‘Oh, it’s the gold.’ Well, yeah, someone had to actually hand-lay that gold on there. It’s beyond paper thin, how thin that is. It was actually from Italy. There’s a company that makes that,” Bennett said.
“They lay it down, you got to see the whole process of them adding the primer and adding the adherent, and then they put the gold down, and then brush it on and make it stick, and then brush away the excess,” he said. “It’s such a neat, neat process, and being able to document that, for people to see how it’s done. You’re not gonna be able to see that again, maybe ever.”
The World Photographic Cup awards ceremony will take place at the Hilton Nordica in Reykjavik, Iceland, on Saturday, April 25 at 8 a.m. Eastern time.
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On this West Virginia Week, the air around the site of a chemical leak near Institute is determined safe, the state reaches a settlement with Roblox, and Charleston photographer Perry Bennett represents Team USA in Iceland.
A West Virginia photographer is representing Team USA in the 2026 World Photographic Cup in Iceland this week – and he’s there because of a photo he almost didn’t take. We hear from longtime photographer for the West Virginia Legislature and two-time winner of the Professional Photographers of West Virginia Photographer of the Year award, Perry Bennett.
Fifteen years ago, when Maddie McGarvey was a sophomore at Ohio University, she took on a project to document grandparents raising their grandchildren. That led her to meet 3-year-old Paige Casto and her family. She’s been photographing them ever since. Inside Appalachia Associate Producer Abby Neff spoke with McGarvey.
