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[OM] Don McCullin

Subject: [OM] Don McCullin
From: Simon Evans <sje@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 5 Nov 2000 10:37:51 GMT
The following notes are extracts from an article in Practical Photography
April 1986.

    "It doesn't matter how much equipment you've got; the essence of
photography will always be in the man's mind. You can have truckloads of
equipment and never take a good photograph. The more equipment you have the
more decisions you have to make, so it's a hindrance. You need the equipment
that suits your personality and to make sure it's 100lean and serviced.
Then it's up to you." 
While taking pictures that were subsequently published all over the world he
only ever used two Olympus lenses - a 28mm and a 135mm. He never even took a
motordrive: 
    "Some photographers massacre their photos by pressing a machine-gun
trigger. I'm mean about film, I respect it enormously." 
He took 5 bodies and used two at a time. He literally ditched a body that
went wrong. Olympus gear if one of the few things he's in favour of. He also
photographed the 1986 Guinness calender in Kenya. He took the photos for the
60s cult movie "Blow Up" (though he says he learned nothing from the
experience) as well as Hugh Hudson's "Revolution". He found the experience
on the latter: "horrendous. I had more hassle photographing that film than
any war I've ever been to."
The book "Homecoming" was published by MacMillan in 1989. Later he produced
"Hearts of Darkness", and his autobiography "Unreasonable Behaviour" was
published by Jonathan Cape in 1990. More recently he published a book of
mono landscapes of the Somerset countryside around his home. In a 1991
interview he says: 
    "Photography to me is not looking, it's feeling, and if you can't feel
what you're looking at and interpret it backwards then you're never going to
be any good at it."

Simon E.


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