Don McCullin: Nobody wants the pictures I used to take.

[warden]

You really can't compare the amateur photos referenced here with the work of Don McCullin, James Nachtwey or Phillip Jones Griffiths, to name some of my favorites. Yes they are documents of a sort, but they lack the profound meaning delivered by the pros.

The author of that NYT article is in agreement with you I suspect.

"The bystander’s cameraphone footage, the GoPro on the soldier’s helmet, the terrorist’s YouTube clip, the propagandist’s social media post: these lower-resolution amateur images do not enjoy the stability of war photography of old."

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

War photography today is no different than in the past. It's messaged to represent the "truth" as the news editor wants to present it.

 

[MattKing]

From a moderator's point of view, this is a subject bordering on the political.
That and rose coloured glasses about the values of the past.

 

[CMoore]

OK.
Let me reword this a bit

While corporate photographers are more regulated in today's world.......In theory, the risks are still there.
I would hate to pick up a camera as a 'War Photographer' ..... only to suffer from Sean Flynn disease.

 

[warden]

From a moderator's point of view, this is a subject bordering on the political.
That and rose coloured glasses about the values of the past.

I get it. If the articles (the one I posted today and the OP) had presented an opinion or chose sides about any specific war I would not have shared them, but they seem fairly limited to analyzing the differences between past and present depictions of war. Of course some politics comes in to what people are shown (both now and then) but I’m not sure how to avoid that when talking about war based photojournalism. So delete if needed.

In any case perhaps today’s NYT article offers one explanation about why McCullin thinks “nobody wants the pictures I used to take.”

 

[MattKing]

I get it. If the article (the one I posted today and the OP) had presented an opinion or chose sides about any specific war I would not have shared it, but they seem fairly limited to analyzing the differences between past and present depictions of war. Of course some politics comes in to what people are shown (both now and then) but I’m not sure how to avoid that when talking about war based photojournalism. So delete if needed.

In any case perhaps today’s NYT article offers one explanation about why McCullin thinks “nobody wants the pictures I used to take.”

Oops - I wasn't clear.
I was referencing Alan's post #52 about "truth", and CMoore's now deleted response.

 

[warden]

Oops - I wasn't clear.
I was referencing Alan's post #52 about "truth", and CMoore's now deleted response.

Oh ok gotcha.

 

[Arthurwg]

would hate to pick up a camera as a 'War Photographer' ..... only to suffer from Sean Flynn disease.

What disease is that?

 

[Arthurwg]

Oops - I wasn't clear.
I was referencing Alan's post #52 about "truth", and CMoore's now deleted response.

Is a discussion of "truth" political?

 

[MattKing]

Is a discussion of "truth" political?

Any discussion about definitions can be.

 

[CMoore]

What disease is that?

Death by....... natural causes

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I get it. If the articles (the one I posted today and the OP) had presented an opinion or chose sides about any specific war I would not have shared them, but they seem fairly limited to analyzing the differences between past and present depictions of war. Of course some politics comes in to what people are shown (both now and then) but I’m not sure how to avoid that when talking about war based photojournalism. So delete if needed.

In any case perhaps today’s NYT article offers one explanation about why McCullin thinks “nobody wants the pictures I used to take.”

Oops - I wasn't clear.
I was referencing Alan's post #52 about "truth", and CMoore's now deleted response.

Warden is correct. We have always discussed the truth in photography. There are hundreds of posts throughout the forum regarding truth, veracity, etc. Why is it political when it comes to war photos? Can we discuss truth in photos about the environment, science, advertising, etc? I deliberately did not mention any particular picture or political theme, just truth in general. There is no discussion if you drop truth as a topic.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Oops - I wasn't clear.
I was referencing Alan's post #52 about "truth", and CMoore's now deleted response.

Thank you for your work and making it clear what the political problem is related to this thread.

 

[MattKing]

Warden is correct. We have always discussed the truth in photography. There are hundreds of posts throughout the forum regarding truth, veracity, etc. Why is it political when it comes to war photos? Can we discuss truth in photos about the environment, science, advertising, etc? I deliberately did not mention any particular picture or political theme, just truth in general. There is no discussion if you drop truth as a topic.

Take the quotation marks away from your post to remove the implied irony, and there won't be any issue.

 

[Don_ih]

There wasn't any issue at all. Alan was mentioning something that is ideologically-driven, not specifically political, and certainly not partisan. He wasn't saying what that "truth" is or should be, but just that newspaper editors and photographers are going to take or select photos that best align with what they want to present as "true". The quotes demarcate a concept rather than a particular referent. There was nothing "bordering on the political" about it - although the accusation did succeed in diverting the discussion away from its actual topic (namely, how deluded McCullin is to think photojournalism will die with him).

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Take the quotation marks away from your post to remove the implied irony, and there won't be any issue.

I used quotation marks around "truth" to indicate it's only Truth according to the way the photographer or editor see it. Viewers should look at photos with discerning eyes.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

There wasn't any issue at all. Alan was mentioning something that is ideologically-driven, not specifically political, and certainly not partisan. He wasn't saying what that "truth" is or should be, but just that newspaper editors and photographers are going to take or select photos that best align with what they want to present as "true". The quotes demarcate a concept rather than a particular referent. There was nothing "bordering on the political" about it - although the accusation did succeed in diverting the discussion away from its actual topic (namely, how deluded McCullin is to think photojournalism will die with him).

Thank you. You explained it better than I could.

 

[MattKing]

There wasn't any issue at all. Alan was mentioning something that is ideologically-driven, not specifically political, and certainly not partisan. He wasn't saying what that "truth" is or should be, but just that newspaper editors and photographers are going to take or select photos that best align with what they want to present as "true". The quotes demarcate a concept rather than a particular referent. There was nothing "bordering on the political" about it - although the accusation did succeed in diverting the discussion away from its actual topic (namely, how deluded McCullin is to think photojournalism will die with him).

You may have missed the now deleted response. Alan's post - which was not deleted, plus the response, which was deleted by the poster, together started the thread down a very political path. But rather than deleting both, I commented, and the thread turned away from that path - exactly what was hoped and intended.

Any further comments on moderation should be addressed outside of the thread.

 

[Arthurwg]

Anyway, Don is a great photographer, war or landscape. And I think his point is that interest in his type of photojournalism has waned. People are more or less numb to that stuff, and no longer care very much. Not to mention that the kind of mass circulation picture magazines we used to have, Life, Look etc., no longer exist.

 

[Don_ih]

Not to mention that the kind of mass circulation picture magazines we used to have, Life, Look etc., no longer exist.

Yet far more photos are "made public" now than ever before. It's just difficult to sort through them.

**

I now have "Insufficient privileges to respond in this thread." Because I disagreed with someone? Seems that way.

 

[Arthurwg]

Yet far more photos are "made public" now than ever before. It's just difficult to sort through them.

Yes, but the vast majority are of little or no value. We are talking about the kind of pictures Don used to make. That's very different. And BTW, The Guardian has great pictures.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Yes, but the vast majority are of little or no value. We are talking about the kind of pictures Don used to make. That's very different. And BTW, The Guardian has great pictures.

How do you judge that? Not every picture is taken for fine art or for newspapers. Most are just to memorialize something. Many are family and friend pictures that have more value to people than fine art pictures.

 

[tomkatf]

Taizo Ichinose...

 

[snusmumriken]

Taizo Ichinose...

He was 26 when he died doing that job. What is your point?

 

[pentaxuser]

Is that the famous back of a Nikon, I presume, that stopped a bullet doing fatal damage to the owner? Yes it is proof that a handful of "war" photographers ( in terms of the then photographing population) put themselves in danger and because they were few in number we then got to know their stories. However with the advent of i phones with their ever improving ability to both take stills and video, everyone can be potentially a "war" photographer. So I suspect many more are now in that category, be it only in one specific area of their theatre of war and be it only for a few minutes, hours or days while the action takes place in their area. What they collectively produce if it is transmitted as inevitably it is, can become a more all round picture of what is going on than a handful of professional war photographers like Don could ever have achieved

So surely it is not that no-one wants his kind of pictures anymore but that even equipped with a digital camera and the equipment to transmit his pictures instantly he becomes only one of many more war photographers who may or may not get his pictures seen. In today's world a picture of street fighting in Nicosia such as Don captured in the early 1960s would be available to 100s of would- be war photographers who taken as a whole may produce a bigger picture of what is going on and in real time than Don could ever in the early 60s have hoped to produce.

An i phone will never "stop a bullet" but I'd have thought that there is a good chance by now or very soon in the future that there will be a great number of dead war photographers with i phones of whom the general public will be none the wiser about their exploits because none of them will ever be known to other than their immediate family

pentaxuser