Many photographers aim to create photographs that evoke a smile, but for Don McCullin, the British photojournalist who has spent decades covering war and global conflicts, his goal is a little different: he wants to create photographs that make people lose sleep at night.
McCullin, who has spent more than 50 years photographing wars and global conflicts, will release what he says is his final photo book in October, the same month as his 91st birthday. Ahead of the launch of the book titled Vietnam, McCullin spoke to CBS News for a mini-documentary on his iconic career as a war photographer.
Looking over McCullin's photographs may make viewers feel uncomfortable, but that’s by design.
“I always print my pictures dark,” he said. “I want my picture to hurt you. I don’t want you having any free rides. I’m there to upset you, and I’m there to make you feel uncomfortable the way I feel when I go to bed at night. Otherwise, there’s no point in me going there in the first place.”
McCullin may have retired from war photography at age 75, but the photographer says he still relives those battles every night. The February 1968 Battle of Haế in the Vietnam War is both the subject of the photographer’s final book and the memories that he relives every night.
“To this day, I live that battle every night I go upstairs in this house to go to sleep. Every night. It never leaves me,” he said.
McCullin says that he was told by a superior officer that the battle was to be a 24-hour mission. 11 days later, he was still there with the Delta Company US Marine unit that suffered a 40 percent casualty rate in the battle that stretched to 26 days.
It was amid the Battle of Haế that McCullin took what many consider to be his most iconic photograph: A photo of a shell-shocked soldier, staring vacantly into the distance. The photograph became an iconic representation of the war that sparked formal recognition for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
But McCullin says he actually hates that photograph. “Frankly, I hate this picture because people think it’s the only picture that I’ve ever taken,” he said. “It’s just that you have to be careful when you make these pictures. If you turn them into an iconic picture and they are bearable to look at, you haven’t done your job properly because it means that people will accept instead of turning away.”
McCullin may have spent a career taking photographs designed to make people feel uncomfortable, but he was also known for putting his cameras down when necessary. In the mini-documentary, he recounted photographing a man being held up by two soldiers in Vietnam. But when all three of them fell to the ground, he put the injured Marine on his back and carried him to safety.
McCullin says he has covered nearly every major global conflict during his decades-long career, including being wounded by a mortar in Cambodia – where he continued to take photos from the back of a truck.
“As long as people run armament factories and create weapons of war,” he said, “you’re photographing one war thinking there’s another war waiting in the background, as there is in this world we live in today.”
Don McCullin’s Vietnam will be released in October, retailing for $95 / £80 / CA$148. The hardcover photo book is available to pre-order from Amazon, with signed editions available directly from the publisher, GOST Books.
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