I went on a trip to visit the exhibition of Don McCullin, a documentary photographer, especially of war. This exhibition presents his last 60 years of work which include images from conflict in Cyprus, Northern Ireland, Vietnam, Lebanon and recently Syria. He also photographs the domestic problems in England including the problems of homelessness and poverty in the East End, the conditions of the North of England and McCullin's experiences during his youth in North London. McCullin's career in photography began when he joined the RAF between 1954-1956 where he first got a camera and failed to qualify as a RAF photographer. Between the years 1956 to 1959, McCullin worked as a darkroom assistant. |
The introductory room in the exhibition presented the early work of Don McCullin during the time he grew up in Finsbury Park, North London, where McCullin was surrounded and grew up around a lot of gang violence and culture. This photo in particular titled 'The Guv'nors in their Sunday suits' was taken in 1958 of members of McCullin's schools who participated in gang culture. McCullin uses a low angle in order to present a sense of intimidation by the participants staring down through the camera lens and create a sense of dominance by the gang photographed. McCullin also used followed the rule of thirds which makes the photo fill the frame perfectly and subsequently was used to insist McCullin by the Observer to take photographs that follow the same ethos. |
Room 3; Cyprus, Biafra, Congo: |
In 1961, McCullin travelled to Berlin, Germany, to photograph the erection of the Berlin Wall during the high tensions of the Cold War between the Capitalist West and Communist East in order to prevent the transporting of individuals fromEast to West Germany and vice versa, which was initially drawn during the Berlin Blockade from 1948 to 1949. The photograph titled 'Near Checkpoint Charlie' focuses on the boot of a soldier, with a women soon approaching them out of focus presents the actions of soldiers during the time there was no warfare occurring. McCullin's passion in documentary photography led him to capturing the tensions of the Cold War in Berlin without the funding of a newspaper or business, but instead out of his own will and desire to capture conditions of war.
McCullin was sent to capture the civil war that was occurring in the 1970s in Cyprus between the Turkish and Greek Cypriots over Cypriot land. McCullin photographed the horrors that came with the conflict and in particular the civilian deaths that had taken pace, and the families that had been torn apart in the process. |
While the other rooms exhibited the atrocities and events that occurred during warfare, McCullin photographs the inadequacies that arise domestically as he photographed the portraits of the homeless in East London. This photo in particular is titled 'Homeless Irishman, Spitalfields, London', 1969. In addition to that, while the previous rooms present the experiences and conditions surrounding those affected by war, this room presents the problems that the homeless face and the insufficient and unstable socio-economic conditions that they are entrenched in.
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