Bleak Reality In Black And White (From Bradford Telegraph And Argus) Bleak reality in black and white 8:35am Wednesday 6th May 2009
The creation of the Magnum photo agency in Paris, in 1947, and the introduction of small, lightweight cameras and more light-sensitive film, took photography out of the studio and into the world. Photojournalism for magazines like Vogue and Picture Post during the Spanish Civil War and Second World War meant pictures were expected to tell a story, not simply illustrate one. The work of photographers like Bill Brandt, Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson had gone beyond Cecil Beaton’s society and fashion pictures. Getting out into the field meant taking pictures of war, poverty and extreme distress, as though the moral worth of a photograph could only be judged by the seriousness of the subject matter and the risk taken by the photographer. Don McCullin, born in London in 1936, has received many accolades for his graphic depictions of the human condition. But the talent came at a price: guilt. He says he was able to walk away from those dying of starvation or being murdered. “I put my camera down and helped a wounded soldier in Vietnam. I have done all that. But it’s no good getting on an aeroplane, going to Vietnam and having a nervous breakdown. “It’s too deep an area to quantify what’s right and wrong. I don’t feel terribly comfortable about all the honours I’ve been given for taking those photographs…I can’t stomach any more poverty and misery,” he says. Don still takes photographs in his preferred black and white and does his own developing; but lately his subject matter has changed. His latest project involved travelling along the North African coast taking photographs of ancient Roman cities. “They are places of unparalleled beauty and brutality. People paid for those places with their lives,” he adds. But why go there in the first place? “I need to go back to go forward. You try to find out the reason for the whole epic grand design. What were these Romans up to? It keeps me ticking over. I try to broaden my mind by not staying in the same places.” That’s a different outlook to the one he used to have, when the darker side of English life in the 1970s brought him back to inner-city Manningham. The poorest part of the city had once been home to the well-to-do. Their big houses and villas subsequently became known as houses of multioccupation at a time when Bradford Council was a statutory housing authority. “I kept coming back because Bradford was so interesting, and it still is. There is no time when you come through Bradford that something interesting isn’t going on.” He’s fond of the city, and its people, for their warmth and openness. Pictures he took here in the 1970s can be seen at his latest exhibition. “The good thing about this exhibition is that people of Northern England don’t have to go to London with their families for it. It’s good that things come to them,” he says. Don McCullin – In England is on at the National Media Museum from Friday until September 27. For tickets ring 0870 7010200.