Don McCullin

Sir Donald McCullin, CBE, Hon FRPS (born 9 October 1935) is a British photojournalist, particularly recognized for his war photography and images of urban strife. His career, which began in 1959, has specialised in examining the underside of society, and his photographs have depicted the unemployed, downtrodden and the impoverished.

Early life

McCullin grew up in Finsbury Park, North London, but he was evacuated to a farm in Somerset during the Blitz. He is dyslexic but displayed a talent for drawing at the Secondary Modern School he attended. He won a scholarship to Hammersmith School of Arts and Crafts but, following the death of his father, he left school at the age of 15, without qualifications, for a catering job on the railways. He was then called up for National Service with the Royal Air Force.

Career

During McCullin's period of National Service in the RAF he was posted to the Canal Zone during the 1956 Suez Crisis, where he worked as a photographer's assistant. He failed to pass the written theory paper necessary to become a photographer in the RAF, and so spent his service in the darkroom. During this period McCullin bought his first camera, a Rolleicord. On return to Britain shortage of funds led to his pawning the camera. His mother used her own money to redeem the pledge.

In 1959, a photograph he took of a local London gang was published in The Observer. Between 1966 and 1984, he worked as an overseas correspondent for the Sunday Times Magazine, recording ecological and man-made catastrophes such as war-zones, amongst them Biafra, in 1968, and victims of the African AIDS epidemic. His hard-hitting coverage of the Vietnam War and the Northern Ireland conflict is particularly highly regarded.

He also took the photographs of Maryon Park in London which were used in Michelangelo Antonioni's film Blowup.

In 1968, his Nikon camera stopped a bullet intended for him.

Also in 1968, on 28 July, he was invited to photograph the Beatles, then at the height of their fame and in the midst of recording The White Album. These sessions, made at several London locations, have become known as The Mad Day Out. They contain many well known images of the band, including the gatefold sleeve picture from the Red and Blue compilations where the Beatles mingled with the crowd seen through railings. The photographs from this day were published in the 2010 book A Day in the Life of the Beatles.

In 1982 the British Government refused to grant McCullin a press pass to cover the Falklands War, claiming the boat was full. At the time he believed it was because the Thatcher government felt his images might be too disturbing politically.

He is the author of a number of books, including The Palestinians (with Jonathan Dimbleby, 1980), Beirut: A City in Crisis (1983), and Don McCullin in Africa (2005).

His book, Shaped by War (2010), was published to accompany a major retrospective exhibition at the Imperial War Museum North, Salford, England in 2010 and then at the Victoria Art Gallery, Bath and the Imperial War Museum, London. His most recent publication is Southern Frontiers: A Journey Across the Roman Empire, a poetic and contemplative study of selected Roman and pre-Roman ruins in North Africa and the Middle East.

In 2012, a documentary film of his life titled McCullin and directed by David Morris and Jacqui Morris was released. The film was nominated for two BAFTA awards.

In later years, McCullin has turned to landscape and still-life works and taking commissioned portraits.

In November 2015 McCullin was named the Photo London Master of Photography for 2016, at the launch of Photo London, an art fair due to open at Somerset House in May 2016. A special exhibition dedicated to his work is to be commissioned. When asked about the rise of digital photography, he said: “Digital photography can be a totally lying experience - you can move what you want, the whole thing can’t be trusted really."

Family life

Currently living in Somerset, he is married and has five children from his current and earlier marriages.

Émile Béchard, Femme du Luxor from McCullin's personal selection of photographs from the National Media Museum's collection, 2009.

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• Don McCullin (2010) A Day in the Life of the Beatles. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 9780224091244. New York: Rizzoli. ISBN 9780847836116.
  • A day in the life of the Beatles: un giorno speciale con John, Paul, George e Ringo. Milan: Rizzoli. ISBN 9788817043793.
  • A day in the life of the Beatles: söndagen den 28 juli 1968. Stockholm: Max Ström. ISBN 9789171262042.
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McCullin receiving the World Press Photo Award in 1964

• 1964: World Press Photo Award, for his coverage of the war in Cyprus.
• 1964: Warsaw Gold Medal.
• 1977: Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society (FRPS).
• 1993: honorary doctorate from the University of Bradford.
• 1993: honorary degree from the Open University.
• 1993: CBE, the first photojournalist to receive the honour.
• 2003: Royal Photographic Society's Special 150th Anniversary Medal and Honorary Fellowship (HonFRPS) in recognition of a sustained, significant contribution to the art of photography.
• 2006: Cornell Capa Award.
• 2007: Royal Photographic Society's Centenary Medal.
• 2008: Honorary Doctorate of Letters by the University of Gloucestershire in recognition of his lifetime's achievement in photojournalism.
• 2009: Honorary Fellowship of Hereford College of Arts.
• 2011: Honorary Degree (Doctor of Arts) from the University of Bath.
• 2016: Lucie Award in Achievement in Photojournalism category
• McCullin was knighted in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to photography.

• 2013: Retrospective, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada.

• "I grew up in total ignorance, poverty and bigotry, and this has been a burden for me throughout my life. There is still some poison that won't go away, as much as I try to drive it out."
• "I am a professed atheist, until I find myself in serious circumstances. Then I quickly fall on my knees, in my mind if not literally, and I say : 'Please God, save me from this.'"
• "I have been manipulated, and I have in turn manipulated others, by recording their response to suffering and misery. So there is guilt in every direction: guilt because I don't practise religion, guilt because I was able to walk away, while this man was dying of starvation or being murdered by another man with a gun. And I am tired of guilt, tired of saying to myself: "I didn't kill that man on that photograph, I didn't starve that child." That's why I want to photograph landscapes and flowers. I am sentencing myself to peace."
• "Photography for me is not looking, it’s feeling. If you can’t feel what you’re looking at, then you’re never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures."