Don McCullin

Don McCullin born 9th October 1935 is an internationally known British photo journalist. He is mainly recognised for his war photographer. In 1959 a photograph that he had taken of a local London gang was published in the Observer. This lead him to work for the Observer for several years. Between 1966-1984 he worked for the Sunday Times magazine. His assignments included Biafa, the Belgian Congo, the Northern Irish 'Troubles', Bangladesh, The Lebanese Civil War, El Savador, and The Russian Invasion of Afghanistan. His most famous photos are of Vietnam and Cambodia.

On visit to the Imperial War Museum in London I took a look around the 'Shaped by War' exhibition by Don McCullin. It consisted of various room exhibiting his photographs taken when working for the Sunday Times. His photographs were very moving has he had captured the emotion and atmosphere in every image. His use of spacing was great considering he was amongst war and conflict taking place. His photographs showed the realisation of what took place and what is still happening now in some countries. One set of images made me feel really emotional and disgusted at what had happened was one photograph being of a family standing by a staircase then the image next to it of that family all lying on the floor after they had all been shot. I love the fact that he uses black and white photography as it makes the image more powerful; his work influenced my choice of photographs for my final idea.