BBC 1 - Imagine: Portrait of Don McCullin
I found this to be one of the most compelling, awe inspiring and thought provoking programmes I have ever seen. In this programme Don McCullin talks with honesty and humility about the horrors he has borne witness too as an observer in countless conflicts around the world. He is a self confessed war junky, but this is a man who seems almost to have risen to a calling and has been left questioning his role as an observer in situations where he felt powerless to help. There is no bravado in the way he talks but a great sadness at what he has witnessed as well as a disillusionment about whether his pictures have had the impact he hoped they would. He has gambled with his life and sacrificed his peace of mind in order to confront the world with the real horrors of war. The programme barely touches on his extraordinary skill as a photographer and instead hones in on the real value of his legacy. He has recorded man's inhumanity to man in a starkly graphic way in an attempt to wake up the world. These horrors are too easy to shy away from in our over sanitised and very comfortable world which makes them even more explosive in their impact. He has come face to face with the most depressing aspects of human nature, borne witness to the most horrific human actions, the perpetrators of which often turn to politics or religion in their defence. He refers to it as some kind of madness but despite this, he is still compelled to tell the story of conflict with his images. If he has squirmed on many occasions because all he had to offer the victims of war was his camera, then I hope he can take some comfort from the fact that if anything is ever going to change humanity for the better, his images are perhaps the best hope we have. In my mind, he is a legend.
www.songbirdphotography.co.uk
