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.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the author's empathy for underprivileged communities, driven by personal experience.
In this quote, Don McCullin expresses his commitment to documenting the experiences of the underprivileged, drawing from his own background. He emphasizes the importance of standing in solidarity with marginalized groups, such as Palestinians and the poor in India, highlighting a deep connection to their struggles through his photography. McCullin’s work serves not only as an artistic endeavor but also as a means of advocacy for those whose stories are often overlooked or ignored.
In practice
In a speech at an art gallery showcasing social justice photography, I might use this quote to emphasize the importance of representing marginalized voices.
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.
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.
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.
Photography is the truth if it’s being handled by a truthful person.
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.
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.
It was my 16th birthday-my mom and dad gave me my Goya classical guitar that day. I sat down, wrote this song, and I just knew that that was the only thing I could ever really do-write songs and sing them to people. [...] Everything on this record is what I really wanted to say, and I'm back to being the poet I always thought I was.
Movies absorb our attention more completely, I think.
I prefer the old masters, by which I mean John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford.
Music is the weapon. Music is the weapon of the future.
The weapons an author has at her disposal are flawed. There are words that feel shapeless and overused. Love, for example. I could write the word love a thousand times and it would mean a thousand different things to different readers.
The moment of creative impulse is what an artist gives you. You look at a Pollock, and it can't give you the tools to do a painting like that yourself, but in doing the work, Pollock shares with you the moment of creative impulse that drove him to do that work.
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