Episode Eight
Don McCullin
The celebrated British photographer talks about his collaborations with travel writers from Norman Lewis to Bruce Chatwin, his passion for India, and how travel is a form of escape from his six decades of work covering conflict from Vietnam to Biafra.
Released 28.04.23
The Conversation
‘There’s nothing special about me,’ says Don McCullin: ‘I just happen to have earned my living and my journey through life using a piece of glass.’
In this episode, Sophy and Don discuss his decades-long career as a photojournalist, including the travels and images that give him respite from the brutality of war. He paints a vivid picture of India — a place Don adores — including an ancient elephant festival on the banks of the Ganges.
They talk about Don’s collaborations with travel writers: Eric Newby, Mark Shand, Norman Lewis, Barnaby Rogerson and Bruce Chatwin. They discuss the anxieties around ‘exoticising’ travel, and the sanitisation inherent in the digital age, exploring the idea of truthtelling and its various interpretations.
Don talks about his childhood in East London and the trauma left by a career spent witnessing war, and how turning to landscape photography in the wintry Somerset levels has helped heal memories of murders, massacres, earthquakes and starvation. ‘A tree is only a tree when it has shed its canopy, because it’s saying “here’s my skeleton: this is what I really am.” ’
Image (c) Don McCullin.
Books Discussed:
Norman Lewis
- A Goddess in the Stones: Travels in India
Eric Newby
- Slowly Down the Ganges
Barnaby Rogerson
- North Africa: A History from the Mediterranean Shore to the Sahara
Mark Shand
- Travels on my Elephant
You can order these books from John Sandoe Books here.
