Don McCullin: The New Definitive Edition

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I was blown away by the Don McCullin exhibition at the Tate Britain & so I’m devouring his autobiography... I also splashed out on the impressive book of pictures that accompanies the exhibition; beautifully shot, harrowing, very occasionally amusing pictures from a lifetime of photo journalism. No one can see these pictures without asking the question: 'How can he take them?' The book helps considerably, by showing how McCullin stumbled into photography, and especially into war photography, largely by accident, although it would of course have been impossible without his latent talent. By reading it, we can get a degree of incite into what drives him, how he copes with the events that he captures on film, and how his job affects the rest of his life. Even reading his words and seeing a comprehensive display of his work, though, give only a partial insight. What can it really have been like to run into hails of bullets, to see soldiers shot beside you and, even worse, see the suffering of innocent families drawn into war? Away from war Don's work has often focused on the suffering of the poor and underprivileged and he has produced moving essays on the homeless of London's East End and the working classes of Britain's industrialised cities.

I have been manipulated, and I have in turn manipulated others, by recording their response to suffering and misery. So there is guilt in every direction: guilt because I don't practise religion, guilt because I was able to walk away, while this man was dying of starvation or being murdered by another man with a gun. And I am tired of guilt, tired of saying to myself: "I didn't kill that man on that photograph, I didn't starve that child." That's why I want to photograph landscapes and flowers. I am sentencing myself to peace." [49] He is the author of a number of books, including The Palestinians (with Jonathan Dimbleby, 1980), Beirut: A City in Crisis (1983) and Don McCullin in Africa (2005). His book, Shaped by War (2010) was published to accompany a retrospective exhibition at the Imperial War Museum North, Salford, England in 2010 and then at the Victoria Art Gallery, Bath and the Imperial War Museum, London. His most recent publication is Southern Frontiers: A Journey Across the Roman Empire, a poetic and contemplative study of selected Roman and pre-Roman ruins in North Africa and the Middle East. McCullin, Donald; Lewis Chester (2002). Unreasonable Behaviour, An Autobiography. Vintage Books. pp.137–138. ISBN 978-0-09-943776-5. Don McCullin (1994). Sleeping with Ghosts: A Life's Work in Photography. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-224-03241-0.Don McCullin; Lewis Chester (2002). Unreasonable Behaviour: An Autobiography. Vintage Books. ISBN 0-09-943776-7. Photography for me is not looking, it’s feeling. If you can’t feel what you’re looking at, then you’re never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures.” Away from war Don’s work has often focused on the suffering of the poor and underprivileged and he has produced moving essays on the homeless of London’s East End and the working classes of Britain’s industrialised cities. I have been travelling the world for the past 65 years – so I can’t explain how Turkey evaded me until recently. A couple of years ago, I had the great pleasure of meeting the charming Turkish Ambassador to London at the time, Ümit Yalçın, and it was with his blessing, and alongside my dear friend, the author Barnaby Rogerson, that we embarked on a series of journeys to discover the remains of Roman Turkey. Don McCullin is one of our greatest living photographers. Few have enjoyed a career so long; none one of such variety and critical acclaim. For the past 50 years he has proved himself a photojournalist without equal, whether documenting the poverty of London's East End, or the horrors of wars in Africa, Asia or the Middle East. Simultaneously he has proved an adroit artist capable of beautifully arranged still lifes, soulful portraits and moving landscapes.

In my teenage years, I became obsessed with Vietnam war films. I devoured everyone I could come across. Big or small budgets made no difference to me. But these films were never going to entirely capture what it was like for the men and women who served out there. So I turned to the literary world in hopes of gleaming just a fraction of what it was like to have had boots on the ground. As I scoured the available information a set of photos came up time and again. With just a little digging the name Dom McCullin came up. His images of the war seemed to capture some of the true horrors of what they faced in a raw and unfiltered way that I think the general public had not really been exposed to before. A great many years later I was able to go to an exhibit of his works this time however it was of the landscape of his home county. As it turns out just a few miles away from where I live. It was fascinating to see someone's work switched to a completely different subject matter. Yet his work still had the same ability to make you stop and just stare as if held by some unseen force.a b c "Entre Vues: Frank Horvat – Don McCullin (London, August 1987)". Frank Horvat Photography . Retrieved 2 September 2013. Das, P (January 2005), "Life interrupted—a photographic exhibition of HIV/AIDS in Africa by Don McCullin", The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 5 (1): 15, doi: 10.1016/S1473-3099(04)01248-4, ISSN 1473-3099, PMID 15620555 I have long admired Don McCullin's heroic journey through some of the most appalling zones of suffering in the last third of the 20th century," Sontag wrote in her essay. "We now have a vast repository of images that make it harder to preserve such moral defectiveness. Let the atrocious images haunt us Seeing reality in the form of an image cannot be more than an invitation to pay attention, to reflect, to learn, to examine the rationalizations for mass suffering offered by established powers." a b Cadwalladr, Carole (22 December 2012). "Don McCullin: 'Photojournalism has had it. It's all gone celebrity' ". The Guardian . Retrieved 22 March 2014.

This is a relentless story of harrowing assignments & a rising conviction of the horror & futility of war, interspersed with occasional, amusing anecdotes drawing out the contrast between the brutality of his work and so-called civilised western society... Don McCullin comes across as fascinated & hooked by war, instinctively creative & human, & compassionate, desperate not to intrude or dehumanise... How did Don McCullin survive? Has he ever had PTSD? Wounded in an explosion that killed the man next to him, caught in the crossfire more than once, imprisoned in a jail where others were being clubbed to death with a sledgehammer, being close by when other journalists (& friends) were killed by missiles or bullets & frequently only narrowly escaping with his life, he’s had a charmed, horrifying life, despite his best efforts! Photojournalism is dead. We’ve become obsessed with glamour and gloss: footballers, narcissism and gossip. Nobody wants the pictures I used to take.

Rome’s eternal legacy

Despite many of his trips, McCullin also describes the impact of his work on his personality and personal life and is very honest.