In Conversation with Don McCullin: Shaped By War

The Imperial War Museum North is currently hosting the mind blowing retrospective exhibition Shaped by War: Photographs by Don McCullin spanning his lengthy 50+ year career. Considered one of the most prolific photographers of conflict, the exhibition contains more than 200 photographs along with video interviews and objects including the Nikon camera that stopped a bullet, his US army issue helmet along side numerous visas and assignment letters. The exhibition charts McCullin's career - from the East End Gangsters and the Turkish invasion of Cyprus to the Vietnam War and Northern Ireland conflict.
Don McCullin’s first published photograph: The Guv’nors of Seven Sisters Road, London,1958. Photograph © Don McCullin
A distraught woman flees the village of Gazabaran with her family after the killing of her husband, Cyprus 1964.Photograph © Don McCullin

Along side the exhibit the museum also hosted a talk in March: in Conversation with Don McCullin. Fluctuating sound levels coupled with screeching microphones meant we missed the first few questions. But aside from technical difficulties it was a really enlightening and deeply honest interview. The overall impression of McCullin is of a very sombre and despondent man. He has obviously been deeply affected by what he has experienced and photographed over the years and this sadness carries over into his more recent landscape photography. For me the most surprising comment of the evening was from McCullin on how he looks back over his lifetimes work and feels it meant nothing, as it changed nothing (ie didn't help stop the wars), and I (like I suspect a lot of people) disagree - whilst his photographs may not have forced politicians into action, I think he has certainly influenced and affected, we the general populous. Certainly I think photography in the media was a strong factor in my joining the protests against the Iraq war in 2001. I think war photography was more in your face, in the danger than the tea time television correspondents ever were. So I think he really does under estimate the power of his work.
Back on topic though, as I mentioned earlier McCullin also talked about his landscape work towards the end of the interview - black and white stark winter landscapes that evoke the same sense of sorrow you get from his photographs of war and from the man himself. Dark, yet not depressing the way some landscapes can be, he has been quoted as saying ‘My landscapes have become a form of meditation. They have healed a lot of my pain and guilt.’
Iron Age fort in the snow, Somerset, 1992.Photograph © Don McCullin

Shaped by War is on display at the Imperial War Museum North until 13th June 2010, an accompanying book Don McCullin - Shaped By War is also available in the Gift Shop.

London part 2

On our second day in London, we got up slightly hung over and headed into central London, first stop Oxford Street. With the credit crunch and recession looming it was sale central. We stopped off at Debenhams to browse their sale with up to 25% off, we got loads of bargains and did a fair bit of Christmas shopping. After that it was off to Russell Square to check out the Babylon exhibition at the British Museum in the pouring rain, unfortunately it was sold out for the day, so we dried off by browsing the permanent collections and realised that interspersed with the very old was the very new in the form of Statuephila - Contemporary British Sculpture including Damien Hirst's painted skulls, Antony Gormley's Case for an Angel 1 and my favourite Ron Mueck's mask II - which along with the easter island statue fell foul to the "crushing your head" thing



After grabbing a bite to eat in the nearby Museum Street, we headed off towards the Barbican as we had tickets for the snappy titled This Is War! Robert Capa at Work, Gerda Taro On the Subject of War. it was a very interesting photographic exhibition, concentrating a lot on Capa & Toro's coverage of the Spanish Civil War, but also down stairs included photos and video pieces based on more recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I thought maybe the upstairs section (Capa & Toro) could've been better laid out, it wasn't clear where the exhibition started and finished, and there were several shots that were displayed twice for reasons unknown. But if you're in London, definitely worth a visit. We also managed to visit the Curve Gallery on the ground floor of the Barbican which was hosting Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Frequency & Volume which is a large scale installation piece contains radios (that seem to double as projectors)that you walk past, depending on the size and strength of your shadow on the wall, the projectors tune to various radio frequencies, displayed on the walls. It's quite surreal listening to a mish mash of local, pirate and national radio stations mixed in with emergency services radio frequencies etc... a lot of fun to be had though - great for kids.

It was getting on for after 6pm at this point, so we took the tube a couple of stops to Brick Lane, in my old neighbourhood of Whitechapel to meet with Julia and Carly who I hadn't seen for well over 2 years! We had a couple of drinks in the Archers pub and then went for a curry. Sorry can't remember the name of the curry house, but as usual the standard was high whilst being less that £10 a head including drinks.

Monday was our day home but we still had the morning to kill, so we checked out the Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life, 1990–2005 exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, just off Trafalgar Square. I was really looking forward to this and it didn't disappoint as one of my favourite Leibovitch photos of the White Stripes was on display

it also contained a variety of "famous" images and faces along side personal photos of the late Susan Sontag. Again, this is definitely worth checking out if you have £12 to spare.

After this there was not much time to do anything except grab a quick bite to eat anc head back to St Pancras for what turned out to be a rather uneventful train journey home.