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Don McCullin: Looking for England

Carlton

Carlton

pfm Member
BBC Four - Monday, 4th Feb, 9pm.
My favourite all time photographer, and not solely for his pictures of war. Should be worth watching.
Copied blurb:
Following the 83 year old photographer as he documents England, from inner cities to seaside towns, on a journey in search of his own nation. Sixty years after starting out, McCullin returns to his old haunts in the East End of London, Bradford, Consett, Eastbourne and Scarborough, encountering an array of characters along the way.
 
Thanks GML, I will definitely record and watch the programme. I was fortunate enough to spend a week working, being taught in Bradford in the mid 1970's by Don McCullin and learned a lot from him. My Headmaster gave the week off from school as he knew I was getting into photography so Don took a small group of students around Bradford and I did not even know who he was or how famous etc until the last day we spent an hour or so in the college library and then saw his published books etc, what a modest man!
 
Jag Audio said:
Thanks GML, I will definitely record and watch the programme. I was fortunate enough to spend a week working, being taught in Bradford in the mid 1970's by Don McCullin and learned a lot from him. My Headmaster gave the week off from school as he knew I was getting into photography so Don took a small group of students around Bradford and I did not even know who he was or how famous etc until the last day we spent an hour or so in the college library and then saw his published books etc, what a modest man!
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You lucky blighter, even though you weren't aware of his background at the time. I've seen a couple of TV programmes featuring him and his work over the years. He presented himself as a very calm man and yes as you say, modest. I seem to remember he took to digital, but of course film was his forte. I would love to meet him.
 
GML said:
You lucky blighter, even though you weren't aware of his background at the time. I've seen a couple of TV programmes featuring him and his work over the years. He presented himself as a very calm man and yes as you say, modest. I seem to remember he took to digital, but of course film was his forte. I would love to meet him.
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Yes I agree that film was his forte and Don taught us the art of black and white printmaking and shared his preferred printing techniques, his choice of enlargers and reasons why and I am sure that as a 15 year old at the time I did not absorb all the information. However whatever I did learn in that intense week has served me well in my adventures and work in the photography world up to now, I was commissioned to make documentary images for a large Sunday supplement magazine and many other large commissions both commercial and non commercial etc but always remember that simplicity of approach to equipment was key.

Even more important was the aspect of engaging with your subjects and treating them as human and of being equal helped to forge communication frequencies that produced more involved rather than superficial images, Don took us around Lumb Lane in Bradford and showed us the impoverished terraced houses that people of all backgrounds lived in and some were by any standard below the bread line and barely had enough to eat so the young women would sell their bodies to survive starvation etc. It was a shocking and sobering reality check for me and stays fresh even now in my mind and certainly helped to appreciate all that I had/have and sadly the world has not improved in leaps and bounds as these social issues still exist and in many ways the human condition of existence and survival in the digital age (not restricted to photography) has become complex. Even the concept and acceptability of documentary and reportage photography genres have been questioned as we "progress" into another era of the image making processes both practical and theoretical.

One thing that always struck me was that Don did not use a regular camera bag but a simply battered up old medium to small rucksack full of a few lenses and about 3 Olympus OM1n and OM2n camera bodies that he was testing out for Olympus and he really liked them for their lovely compact design and lens quality particularly when the Nikon F2a and Nikkormat cameras were the generally most highly cameras at the time or at least what I was lead to believe. Of course I could only dream of anything like this at the time and the venerable and equally well regarded Pentax Spotmatic F camera with the very sharp Takumar 50mm F1.4 was also out of my reach and affordability. I tried Leica M3's, Nikon F2a's etc as well as Hasselblads later and always felt most comfortable with simpler mechanical designs and even now days have some of these in my collection but shooting on film is rare due to costs of processing and finding decent labs these days and digital is just so convenient even if I still want to print on bromide fibre based papers and good old seleinium toner on those deep, rich black tones that are not always matched by current digital prints (IMHO).
 
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A fascinating read, thanks for posting. I agree that digital processing doesn't seem to match the monochrome possibilities of film, paper and darkroom techniques. I once had an amateur darkroom set up in a shed for monochrome prints only and it was quite magical. I currently use 'Lightroom 5' on a Mac and whilst being a very clever piece of software, somehow I find the fun factor slightly lacking, compared to the shed.
 
Just seen Don on BBC Breakfast, speaking about his exhibition in London. Some wonderful images worth seeing if you can make it to London. Check out iPlayer from about 8.20.
 
I watched the program last night. Best thing I have watched for ages. A lovely bloke who comes over really well on TV. He should be given a series - it would be great programming.
 
I too watched it last night and was so engrossed that the hour simply flew by. It was interesting to see the 'then and now' scenes, his darkroom and some wonderful monochrome photos. More of the same please! As a friend put it, "An oasis of intelligent delight amidst a sea of TV dross".
 
A wonderful programme about a wonderful photographer. What an engaging man too.

I thought the funniest part of the programme were the anti-hunt 'ninjas' marching around the countryside like something out of Monty Python.
 
I watched the programme and felt it was thought provoking in the sense that there were people and places that Don had photographed decades earlier and when approached or met again, there was a genuine sense of humor and a level of appreciation of the image making process. I found it a bit rushed to be honest and almost a box ticking exercise by the programme makers because I think a short series on the different places would have been less rushed, more cerebral and better appreciated with more time spent with the subject matter and possibly more time to look at the final prints that Don crafts with such patience.

I just think that Don McCullin deserves a bit more than the recognition he has received in terms of the humanity and sensitivity of his approach to image making that is a stark contrast to someone like Martin Parr whose approach is very different and he was my tutor in art college so have experience of having his input for a year or two. There are other often forgotten good British photographers like John Davies who made some wonderful projects based upon the English landscape in b&w, Paul Graham another colour film photographer whose images were shot on a Plaubel Makina 670 and all these photographers were part time lecturers at my old art college so to some extent influenced my own image making path. I forgot to mention Chris Killip who I never met but his project/book called in flagrante was and still is very inspiring and believe there is also in flagrante two in book form.

All this excellent imagery makes me a little impatient at times to start printing again in the near future once the darkroom possibility becomes a reality and the process of collecting sealed boxes of the fibre based Agfa Record Rapid, Oriental Seagull b&w printing papers is near completion. There is a magical quality to a well crafted b&w print that has a certain simple appearance but the more you look at the more you see of the composition and graphic element. What was also very interesting was to see how the social landscape of Britain had changed over the decades and that change was noted clearly by Don which reminds me of the social changes I often notice and say to myself words like, "why didn't I make photos of that building or those shops etc while they were still there?"
 
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Thanks for the heads-up on the television program and the Tate Exhibition. WIll watch this evening. In London next week and will be going to the Tate. I grew up in Derry in the North of Ireland and have always admired Don McCullin's photos from his time (and mine) there in the early '70's. Along with Clive Limpkin - great photojournalism. There was also an Italian photographer from the same period but his name escapes me. I still have my OM1, OM2 and OM2n - as well as a range of Zuiko lenses (135mm was just stunning) - loved the Olympus OM System and it was cheaper than Nikon at the time. Pleased that Mr McCullin had similar taste in cameras. I also had amateur darkroom and loved the process. I have lightroom and a bog-standard digital Canon but not had as much fun with the latter.
 
What was that camera he used in Scarborough? Looked like a piece of industrial test equipment to me!

I liked the programme, and I'm glad they didn't ruin the Tate exhibition by showing everything that'll be on show.
 
Must watch the programme. Did see something on him a while back where he was shooting landscapes with a Mamiya Press
 
I think it was a Mamiya Super 23 with the 6x9cm roll film back, I know a few people who used them as the lenses are sharp and the large 6x9cm negs or transparencies are superb when exposure and focus are accurate.

The camera does look like an industrial machine and is of the rangefinder design, slower to use than a 35mm SLR etc but still hand holdable as opposed to the 4"x5"cut film or sheet film cameras that generally require a tripod although there are a few more porrtable designs like the Linhof Technika cameras that too can take a roll film back as well so similar in operation to the Mamiya Super 23. There was a Mamiya Press 23 Universal design as well IIRC.
 
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Finally got round to watching this. Really enjoyed his approach to photographing people which can’t have been easy with film crew, sound engineer & producer in tow! He’d always take time to speak to them after he’d taken their picture which is just basic good manners.

A great photographer & still able to knock up outstanding images at the age of 83.

He really is ‘The Don’. :cool:
 
Just watched it on iPlayer now. A superb program and so many amazing photos.

Anyone know what the big clunky square camera he was using at the beginning and on the beach at the end was? I’m usually pretty good at camera spotting, but I didn’t recognise that one at all.
 
Tony L said:
Just watched it on iPlayer now. A superb program and so many amazing photos.

Anyone know what the big clunky square camera he was using at the beginning and on the beach at the end was? I’m usually pretty good at camera spotting, but I didn’t recognise that one at all.
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Looks like it was a Mamiya 6x9 camera - mentioned above. I once considered buying one, but thought it too big and clumsy.
 
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