The documentary photography of Don McCullin is powerful and challenging. M.Haworth-Booth described his photography as being " like candles that no-one will put out, or stains that cannot be removed." McCullin selected a quote from Joseph Conrad as an epigraph for his BRILLIANT autobiography 'UNREASONABLE BEHAVIOUR' which i believe captures the aim of his photography: "To make you hear, to make you feel, to make you see." McCullin's work captures his reality of the Vietnam War, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, War and famine in Africa, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, Israel and Palestine and many other locations where humanity and decency became strangers.
McCullin was famously denied a press pass to cover the Falkland's Crisis in 1982 as the British Government were aware of the power of McCullin's work and clearly wished to present a visual version of the War that they could control. A brave, objective photojournalist is difficult to control when your aim is to manufacture a sanitised version of brutal War. McCullin responded by writing a letter to the Times within which he states: " [this decision] is a wasted opportunity to provide my country with a graphic and historical document illustrating what our men are contributing in the defence of freedom and democracy, we owe it to their courage to give them a proper place in our history.....I suppose, [considering] my experience in war coverage [I am a] threat to the image that [the authorities] would find comfortable."
McCullin once stated that his aim during the Biafra conflict was to " break the hearts and spirits of secure people." His autobiography is an astonishingly honest reflection within which McCullin questions the role of his photography and the effect that a visual image can create. He questions his own motivation and the final page contains the line that: " The ghosts in my filing cabinets sometimes seem to mock me - the ghosts of all those wars, especially that little Biafran boy."
Any media student/teacher could use McCullin's work and compare his imagery with the previous blog and the photograph of JAVAD MOGHIMI and his experience in Iran in 2009. McCullin is worth considering in any discussion of media censorship, visual propaganda, Representations of War, and issues and debates that relate to media and democracy.
Below are a series of links that allow you to hear McCullin discussing his own work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVZe4rQKcls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PwTupwRVV4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Emli5lXoSb4&feature=related
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/video/2010/mar/10/don-mccullin-photography
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/may/22/don-mccullin-southern-frontiers-interview
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