Don McCullin is an English photographer born in North London who spent several decades in war reporting while working for the Sunday Times Magazine. In his professional career as a reporter, he touched on the topic not only of war, but also documented the lives of ordinary people from areas plagued by poverty and industrial areas, where every day was a fight for survival and moral principles had no importance. In the 1960s, he became a legend, and his photos became the most important record of changes in the world, changes which, along with the desire for freedom and independence, also brought wartime torment for the civilian population, and soldiers felt remorse and pushed them to the margins of social life. Don McCullin, due to the nature of his reporting, was not comfortable with the term "artist". In one of the interviews, he speaks bitterly about his experiences and his reporting career: ‘There’s a shadow that comes over my life when I think […] that I’ve earned my reputation out of other people’s downfall. I’ve photographed dead people and I’ve photographed dying people, and people looking at me who are about to be murdered in alleyways. So I carry the guilt of survival, the shame of not being able to help dying people.’(Trilling, 2020). The work of Don McCulinn and his war reportage are most often compared with the works of the Spanish painter of the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, Francisco Goya, who painted dark scenes from the period of Napoleonic terror in Spain and the subsequent revolution. Don McCullin himself saw Goya's paintings in the 1980s in Madrid and was surprised by the similarity not only of the scenes, but also of the characters' emotions captured in them, 'saw what I saw'.( Trilling, 2020).
The material below presents the history of Don McCulin's work as a reporter and the most important photos he took while working for the newspaper.
The most touching pain and suffering of war is always the topic affecting the civilian population. One of Don McCullin's most famous photos from the 1960s is from the war in Cyprus. An iconic photo, a tribute to the weakest, i.e. women and children, and at the same time a warning to future generations, sensitizing them to the suffering caused by the horror of war. In this photo, in the central frame, you can see a woman whose face shows great pain, probably after the loss of someone she loved. The pain is so incredibly deep that it contorts and deforms her face. She is embraced by other women who try to give her encouragement and comfort in this difficult moment. They cry with her. In the photo next to the woman, there is a boy, about 10 years old, it is probably her son, whose hand is touching the woman's clenched hands. In the background you can see another distraught woman with a smaller child in her arms. With such a strong foreground and so much emotion, you rarely look at the background, and here, on the almost equal line of the faces of both women, you look into the depth of both women's pain. Far in the background there are men standing, their faces invisible, they are watching. The drama of this photo is enhanced by the black and white color, there are no shadows in the photo, everything is visible, nothing lurks in the darkness, symbolic evil, everything came out of it. When I started looking at them for a longer time, I was shocked. Hearing and reading about the war was one thing, but seeing such great pain and terror in other people's faces was a completely different experience.
After years of wandering as a reporter, after years of documenting the greatest tragedies of the 20th century by Don McCullin, the moment came when he had to find a break from the ghosts of the past. He found solace near his home in Somerset, photographing the landscape. In the documentary The Stillness of Life he says: ‘I’ve been to hundreds of places in the world, all over the globe, and it all comes back to here. I think this has become a spiritual home for me.’(Houser&Wirth, 2020) His calmness, the escape of a tired soul from the hustle and bustle of big cities and professional work in a newspaper, his wisdom in life are touching, especially when you compare his photos of human tragedy with the peace of nature and landscape. In a documentary full of reflections, Don McCullin says: ‘Nothing ever stays the same in life. You find a place you really love and think it's going to stay like that forever and it won't. You must always expect change. I look out at the landscape and I can see it's only been formed thousands of years ago by volcanic activity, and it's man who's come along and he's shaped the landscape according to his needs. All I'm doing is falling in line with time now, by recording what's there.’ (Houser&Wirth, 2020)
Don McCullin, Somerest Levels near Glastonbury, c.1990
In his raw landscapes, he depicts simple parts of nature, trees, small lakes, rivers, empty roads. He uses light and darkness to highlight their expression. I only take photos in winter, or when all the leaves have fallen from the trees. Looking at these photos, I feel like I'm looking at a battlefield, but without people. The rural landscape in Don McCullin's photos, associated with a romantic and idyllic mood, turns into something disturbing, you can't take your eyes off these images. As if ghosts were about to come out from behind the trees and tell me their stories.
Don McCullin, Woods near My House, c. 1991
Mark Holborn, in his essay One Man Walking on McCullin's photographic landscapes, writes: 'If you look again at McCullin’s landscapes, you start to sense the figure who made the pictures, invisible behind the lens, stepping forward with nothing but his own shadow – in the marsh, against the snow, along the causeway, over the brow.(...)By now he is stripped of all superfluities. He is not a man in repose, who lingers lazily. He is striding into the wind, as always.'(Blythe, 2020).
Don McCullin, Dew-pond by Iron Age Hill Fort, Somerset, c. 1988
In my research I have looked at the reporting and artistic work of Don McCullin, his monochromatic landscapes of Somerset are deeply soul-stirring, and I see them as the context for my photographic project on the landscape of Leicestershire. This will be favored by the time of year when it is not the color that is most important, but the contours, shapes and fog.
References
Trilling, D. (2020). I’ve Earned My Reputation out of Other People’s Downfall’ – an Interview with Don McCullin, APOLLO The International Art Magazine [online] Available at: https://www.apollo-magazine.com/don-mccullin-photographer-interview/ [Accessed 22 Feb. 2020].
Hauser&Wirth (2020). Don McCullin: The Stillness of life, Hauser&Wirth [online] Available at: https://www.hauserwirth.com/ursula/26930-don-mccullin-stillness-life/ [Accessed 10 Jan. 2020].
Blythe, F. (2020). The astonishing beauty of Don McCullin’s landscape photographs, HERO [online] Available at: https://hero-magazine.com/article/161417/the-astonishing-beauty-of-don-mccullins-landscape-photograps [10 Jan.2020].
Please add your research and references, complete this and consider how his techniques will inform your own work
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DeleteI did deep research, I read a lot about Don McCullin's photography, his earlier work for a newspaper influenced his emotionality and his monochromatic landscapes. I wanted to understand him, it took me some time to watch interviews with him. During the classes, I made a skeleton and a research plan, which made my work easier so that I didn't lose anything. I completed everything yesterday.