Don McCullin - In England, National Media Museum

"Don McCullin is one of Britain's greatest photographers. He has travelled the world, capturing raw powerful inages of war, famine and disaster but throughout his career he has also photographed his own country. This exhibition presents McCullin's portrait of England created over 50 years. It is a dark, often uncomfortable vision of a nation divided where the gulf between rich and poor remains as defined as ever. However, McCullin balances his anger at social injustice with great humanity, compassion, lyricism and occassional humour." (National Media Museum)

I love McCullin's work in this exhibition. His work is exclusively black and white and produced with tradional film techniques. He completes all of his processing himself. The contrasty black and white images are superb. There is a huge contrast between poor people in Bradford in the 7os where there is violence, protests and poverty and stunning landscapes. But even his landscapes are gritty and raw and he prefers to shoot in winter snow rather than the verdant conditions of spring and summer.

In a video clip he expresses anger towards the "haves" and is happy going back to the underprivileged. He came from a poor background and he says this made him tough and resilient. He says that studying the work of other photographers was his way forward and an early influence was Bill Brandt. He, himself, was self taught.

He says that if you cannot feel what you are looking at, then you are never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures. This philosophy shines out of his work. He obviously forges a close rapport with his subjects.


He photographed the gangs of his youth. In this image "The Governors", Finsbury Park 1958, he grew tired of his gangland friends constantly pestering him for snapshots of them in their Sunday suits. One summer Sunday afternoon, while hanging around on the street corner waiting for the start of the Astoria Cinema matinee in Seven Sisters Road, he persuaded them to pose in the skeleton of a bombed out and vandalised house

This image of a down and out was taken in The East End, London in 1973. He says "For six weeks in the winter of 1969 I appeared at dawn on the streets of Whitechapel in London's East End.............Communication was difficult at the best of times, for I was dealing with acloholics and schizophrenics who were sometimes violent and dangerous... Stealing pictures of these people with a long lens was not my style. I wanted to be close to them, to feel their plight and to convey the emotion of contact with them. I wanted their trust and to become their voice."




Towards an Iron Age Hill Fort, Somerset, 1991.
"I love the winter - not the climate, but the struggle, its abrasiveness, the nakedness of the landscape."

His landscapes, beautiful though they are, reflect the style of the rest of his photography.



Don McCullin to me is an icon. He may photograph the raw and ugly but his pitures are wonderful