Product Description

Don McCullin's view of England is rooted in his wartime childhood and growing up around Finsbury Park in the fifties. His first published photograph was a picture of a gang from his neighbourhood, which appeared in a newspaper after a local murder; McCullin always balanced his anger at the unacceptable face of the nation with tenderness or compassion."In England" combines some of his greatest work with an entirely new body of photographs. McCullin sees his home country with its perpetual social gulf between the affluent and the desperate in mind. He continues in the same black and white tradition as he did between foreign assignments for the "Sunday Times" in the sixties and seventies, when his view of a deprived Britain seemed as dark as the conflict zones from which he'd just escaped. This book marks his return to the cities and landscape he knew as a young photographer. At a time when we might believe the world has changed beyond our imagination, McCullin shows us a view of England where the line between the wealthy and the deprived is as defined as ever. This time he adds wry humour to his lyricism, as if the nation is as absurd as it is tragic.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14718 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 252 pages

Esquire
'when he turns his lens on England...the effect can be just as powerful'

Sunday Times
`a pleasure to see 40 years of shooting England in one volume'

Herald
'Spanning the late 1950s to the present, his photographs, all black and white, have a searing and often painful honesty'

Customer Reviews

dark and reflective masterpieces
Don McCullin's latest collection of photos is a dark mirror. The prints are beautifully rendered-- uniformly dark but perfectly toned in their range of light and shadow. The subject matter is dark too -- there is little to indicate any social progress to lessen the gap between the privileged and the have-nots over the nearly fifty years the collection represents at its maximum span. McCullin's pictures show bleakly how little has changed over that period.

But perhaps what is most striking is how the English at play still look grotesque regardless of class. You expect shots of your parents generation to look odd; it is startling to see your own generation repeat the same inanities of dress and expression. Take away the captions and you'd be hard pressed to say whether it's 1966 or 2006 on some of the shots.

Regardless of grotesquerie or social commentary, this collection underlines McCullin's mastery of both capturing the moment and then bringing out the maximum impact through careful and thoughtful printing. Its a visually stunning book.

Sublime Collection of Pictures
A superb collection of pictures which need a careful study as they are thought provoking especially after you read the introduction (which you must)by Don Mccullin and his reasons for submitting this collection of his work. Perhaps his study of people back in his homeland became more fascinating to him after his overseas war experiences mainly with the Sunday Times, seeing England as tragic and at times vain and often no better, who knows?.At any rate Don says it is about preserving his memories and how powerful they are. These pictures will instantly be loved and the more you know about McCullin as a person and his work I think this book will be even more meaningful as you see England in a new light. In some ways it acts as a mirror of us all. It's humorous without mocking, showing in places almost tragic irony and rather contrasting situations.It's sobering to see the state of the nation through the decades. Finally I would say that you can't help returning to it because it is like a family of album of post war Britain-warts and all!

An inspiring and utterly engaging photography book
A wonderful coffee table tome spanning back half a century and displaying both high society and low life England and its thrilling landscapes with equal measures of pathos, drama and senstivity. Don McCullin, a master at bringing life and soul the bleak, banal and often ignored, creates pictures which demand a response. You will find yourself returning to his imposing monochromatic images again and again.