Don McCullin

Don McCullin, 2011

Donald McCullin, CBE FRPS (born 9 October 1935, Finsbury Park, London, England) is an internationally known British photojournalist, particularly recognized for his war photography and images of urban strife. His career, which began in 1959, has specialised in examining the underside of society, and his photographs have depicted the unemployed, downtrodden and the impoverished.

Biography

Career

McCullin's period of National Service in the RAF saw him posted to the Canal Zone during the 1956 Suez Crisis, where he worked as a photographer's assistant. He failed to pass the written theory paper necessary to become a photographer in the RAF, and so spent his service in the darkroom.

In 1959, a photograph he took of a local London gang was published in The Observer. Between 1966 and 1984, he worked as an overseas correspondent for the Sunday Times Magazine, recording ecological and man-made catastrophes such as war-zones, amongst them Biafra, in 1968 and victims of the African AIDS epidemic. His hard-hitting coverage of the Vietnam War and the Northern Ireland conflict is particularly highly regarded.

He also took the photographs of Maryon Park in London which were used in Michelangelo Antonioni's film Blowup.

In 1968, his Nikon camera stopped a bullet intended for him.

In 1982 the British Government refused to grant McCullin a press pass to cover the Falklands War. At the time he believed it was because the Thatcher government felt his images might be too disturbing politically. However, it recently emerged that he was a victim of bureaucracy: he had been turned away simply because the Royal Navy had used up its quota of press passes.

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 major 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.

In later years, McCullin has turned to landscape and still-life works and taking commissioned portraits.

In 2012 a documentary film of his life, McCullin directed by David Morris and Jacqui Morris was released. The film was nominated for two BAFTA awards.

Selected awards

McCullin received the World Press Photo Award in 1964 for his coverage of the war in Cyprus. In the same year he was awarded the Warsaw Gold Medal. In 1977, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, placing the letters 'FRPS' after his name. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Bradford in 1993 and an honorary degree by the Open University in 1994.

He was granted the CBE in 1993, the first photojournalist to receive the honour.

McCullin was awarded the Cornell Capa Award in 2006.

McCullin was awarded The Royal Photographic Society's Special 150th Anniversary Medal and Honorary Fellowship (HonFRPS) in recognition of a sustained, significant contribution to the art of photography in 2003. He was awarded The Royal Photographic Society's Centenary Medal in 2007.

On 4 December 2008, McCullin was conferred with an Honorary Doctorate of Letters by the University of Gloucestershire in recognition of his lifetime's achievement in photojournalism. In 2009 he received the Honorary Fellowship of Hereford College of Arts.

In 2011, he was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Arts) from the University of Bath.

Family life

Currently living in Somerset, he is married and has five children from his current and earlier marriages.

Selected works

• The Destruction Business. Open Gate Books. 1971. ISBN 0-333-13022-7. 
• Is Anyone Taking Any Notice?. MIT Press. 1973. 
• Anton Wallich-Clifford & Don McCullin (1974). No Fixed Abode. Macmillan Publishers. 
• Homecoming. Macmillan. 1979. 
• Jonathan Dimbleby & Don McCullin (1980). The Palestinians. Quartet Books. ISBN 0-7043-3322-8. 
• Hearts of Darkness: Photographs by Don McCullin. Secker and Warburg. 1980. 
• Don McCullin. (1983). Beirut: A City in Crisis. New English Library. ISBN 0-450-06037-3. 
• Don McCullin. (1987). Perspectives. Harrap. ISBN 0-245-54368-6. 
• Don McCullin ; introduction by John Fowles. (1989). Open Skies. Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-224-02539-2. 
• Norman Lewis & Don McCullin (1993). An Empire of the East: Travels in Indonesia. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-224-03230-5. 
• Don McCullin (1994). Sleeping with Ghosts: A Life's Work in Photography. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-224-03241-0. 
• Don McCullin ; (1999). India. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-224-05089-3. 
• Cold Heaven. Christian Aid. 2001. ISBN 0-904379-47-7. 
• Don McCullin; with Lewis Chester. (2002). Unreasonable Behaviour: An Autobiography. Vintage Books. ISBN 0-09-943776-7. 
• Don McCullin (2003). Don McCullin. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-224-07118-1. 
• Life Interrupted. Christian Aid. 2004. ISBN 0-904379-64-7. 
• Don McCullin. (2005). Don McCullin in Africa. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-224-07514-4. 
• Don McCullin (2007). Don McCullin in England. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 978-0-224-07870-2. 
• Don McCullin (2010). Shaped by War. Vintage. ISBN 978-0-224-09026-1. 
• Don McCullin (2010). Southern Frontiers: A Journey Across the Roman Empire. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 978-0-224-08708-7. 

Quotes

• "I grew up in total ignorance, poverty and bigotry, and this has been a burden for me throughout my life. There is still some poison that won't go away, as much as I try to drive it out."^{[citation needed]}
• "I am a professed atheist, until I find myself in serious circumstances. Then I quickly fall on my knees, in my mind if not literally, and I say : 'Please God, save me from this.'"^{[citation needed]}
• "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 practice 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."
• "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."^{[citation needed]}

External links

• Don McCullin at horvatland.com
• Don McCullin at Hamiltons Gallery
• Life Interrupted: A gallery from Africa on behalf of Christian Aid
• Interview on BBC Radio
• Selection of photographs by Don McCullin at the Victoria and Albert Museum
• Audio slideshow on BBC News
• TateShots: Don McCullin The artist on his work (podcast by Tate Britain)