Don McCullin - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1597113425 ISBN 13: 9781597113427

Publisher: Aperture, 2015

Synopsis

First published in 2001, this retrospective survey offers both an examination of Don McCullin's photographic career as well as a record of half a century of international conflict. Coinciding with the photographer's eightieth birthday, this expanded edition of Don McCullin serves as fitting homage to a photographer who dedicated his life to the front line in order to deliver compassionate visual testament to human suffering. With texts by Mark Holborn, Harold Evans and Susan Sontag, and photographs taken by McCullin in England, Cyprus, Vietnam, the Congo, Biafra, Northern Ireland, Cambodia, Bangladesh and Beirut, this is an essential volume on one of the legendary photographers of the 20th century. 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.

About this title

Review:

The title of this compilation of photographs says it all. Don McCullin is the definitive collection of the 20th century's most revered war photographer. McCullin's work, right at the heart of some of the most dangerous killing fields in recent decades, has defined the pity of war for a generation. The front cover photograph captures much of what defines his work. A close-up of a shell-shocked US Marine, taken in Vietnam in 1968, portrays a dramatic moment of supreme human emotion under maximum distress, captured with McCullin's incredible compassion and empathy. However, as Harold Evans, McCullin's old boss and former editor of the Sunday Times points out in his introduction, "most of the photographs here have exciting or emotional stories attached to them, but many are distinguished, too, by composition, the compelling mood achieved by sombre lighting, and their sensitivity for the subjects". These include McCullin's remarkable early photographs of urban deprivation and gangland life in London in the late 1950s, and the late, haunting landscapes of Somerset that start and end the collection.

The other chapters bring together McCullin's finest work from Cyprus (1964-65), The Congo (1964-66), Vietnam (1965-68), Biafra (1968-70), Derry (1971), Cambodia (1970-75) and Beirut (1976-82). There are some truly horrifying pictures of these conflicts, whose impact is strengthened by deadpan captions: "Murdered man, shot through the brain, Stanleyville, 1964", "A sixteen-year old mentally handicapped boy. The doctor laughed at him. Biafra, 1968", "Dying Cambodian paratrooper hit by the same mortar shell that hit McCullin, Cambodia, 1970". In her introductory essay Susan Sontag argues that McCullin's extraordinary images are "an invitation to pay attention, to reflect, to learn, to examine the rationalisations for mass suffering offered by established powers". In Don McCullin we have one of the most shocking and compassionate chroniclers of mass suffering, who remains as relevant today as ever before. --Jerry Brotton

Review:

The artistry of his compositions and the compassion with which he approached his subjects gave his work accessibility and for years it was his photographs that connected British people to the reality of wars and natural disasters in faraway places. "CNN"

One of his great skills as a photojournalist was being able to shoot an image of something people find hard to look at and transform it into something they can t look away from. "CNN"

With his visceral frontline images, he brought intense, gut wrenching moments of combat into the homes of millions. "Mother Jones""

The artistry of his compositions and the compassion with which he approached his subjects gave his work accessibility--and for years it was his photographs that connected British people to the reality of wars and natural disasters in faraway places. - CNN

One of his great skills as a photojournalist was being able to shoot an image of something people find hard to look at and transform it into something they can't look away from. - CNN

With his visceral frontline images, he brought intense, gut wrenching moments of combat into the homes of millions. - Mother Jones

About this edition

• Publisher: Aperture
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1597113425
• ISBN 13: 9781597113427
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352