I started out on photography accidentally. A policeman came to a stop at the end of my street, and a guy knifed him at the end of my street. That's how I became a photographer. I photographed the gangs that I went to school with.
Don MccullinRead
I've spent most of my life embracing violence in wars and revolutions. Even a famine is a form of violence. Because I photograph people in peril, people in pain, people being executed in front of me, I find it very difficult to get my head around the art narrative of photography.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the struggle to reconcile the harsh realities of violence with the artistic practice of photography.
Don McCullin, a renowned war photographer, expresses the challenges he faces in aligning his experiences of capturing human suffering in war and famine with the broader narrative of photography as an art form. Through his lens, he confronts the brutality of violence and the ethical dilemmas of portraying it, suggesting that the act of photographing suffering is both a responsibility and a profound challenge to the concept of beauty in art.
Themes
PhotographyViolenceArtWarSuffering
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about the ethics of war photography in a university art class.
More from Don Mccullin
All quotes →In my photography, I always lean towards the underprivileged because that's where I came from. When I went to the wars, I attempted to go and stand by those who were being trodden on. By that, I mean people like the Palestinians. When I go to India, I see really the poorest people, and I tend to be drawn to them.
Don MccullinRead
I am sometimes accused by my peers of printing my pictures too dark. All I can say is that it goes with the mood of melancholy that is induced by witnessing at close quarters such intractable situations of conflict and joylessness.
Don MccullinRead
Photography is the truth if it’s being handled by a truthful person.
Don MccullinRead
When I take a black-and-white portrait, it's not particularly meant to please you. It's meant to talk to you; it's meant to shame you. It's meant to scream out at you, and it has a message.
Don MccullinRead
I'm from England, and like every other great empire who stole bits of the world, there is a price to pay. And I was born in 1935. So, since I've been conscious of the world, I've either been in, or been on the periphery of, a war zone.
Don MccullinRead
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