Don McCullin

Don McCullin

In one of Don McCullins books, entitled open skies, his Images are described as being serious and shocking by the poet and essayist John Fowles. He stated in the book

“The first time when don showed me the photographs for the book, their seriousness came as something of a shock, not ;east because I had failed to take proper  account of a prior confession he had made. The many wars he had covered, I believe a dozen in twenty years, had , he said damaged his soul, and the scars of that battering were now emerging in these new lanscapes”.

Just by looking at his work you can see that his documentary war images have rubbed off on the rest of his other images like his portraits and landscapes as in his war images he captures the dark moods when people have just killed or are prepared to kill. Some other moods he shows in his images are when people are really run down and look really ruff.

With the dark mood of his war images he features the same mood in his landscapes as they are dark and techniquelly under exposed but for what he has seen these images fit the mood he has seen in the past.

Also According to Jon, Don has talked but it rarely of what he thinks his pictures mean, unlike many photographers these days who, not satisfied with simply printing their work. With Don not talking about his work it doesn’t surprise me as what he must have seen, when documenting the wars he was at, will have been torturing for him to see.

His still life images also have the same mood and effect when viewing them as they are dark and simple with basic lighting, some of his images have been captured using natural lighting but the way he has captured them is the part that makes the images look moody and dark.

For example the image of the flowers on a side table with some fruit and horse has a really dried out tone, an example of this would be the flowers dropping down to almost simples death. All his still life images and even his location images like the landscapes and war images are captured in monochrome as the, black and white makes an image more serious and moody.

Some of his work can be seen below

 

The image above is an a image that don captured of some still life objects. In the image its features some flowers that have the look as if they are dying, this mood on the flowers in my opinion relates to his time taking images of different wars, as the flowers relate to death and in some cases this is what don would have seen when he was taking images during the wars he attaended.

 

The image above is, in my opinion, is one of Don McCullins best images as it has create geometric shapes and has great textures for the background just like the backgrounds to all his Still Life. The image also features Great objects such as the fruit and the water cup. The image again has quite a dark appearance to it like the rest of his images.

The Final Image above is an image that has real meaning and has some great texture to it. The meaning for the image from my point of view would be the flowers are leant over to show how they are strong but are dying out, the flowers also lead into the horse at the corner of the table. The fruit in the image in my opinion is there to make the image look a little more homely. The table on which the objects are placed on makes the images texture as it gives great shadows and an understanding of where the light will have been when Don captured the image.

As a hole I find Don McCullins Images an enjoy to look at and view but also an massive inspiration to my own work, as upto now all my images have been well lite and have had quite a lot of light and high keyness to them, were as in these images they are quite dark and moody which in some cases makes the image stand out more and makes the image look more impressive.