Product Description

Don McCullin's reputation stands as one of the greatest war photographers of our times. In recent years he has photographed the landscape surrounding his home in Somerset, but his later travels have taken him to some of the most remote regions in the world. His skill in photographing people in extreme situations has enabled him to mix with tribes on the edges of civilisation. His work among the people of Irian Jaya, including cannibals, appeared in his last book, Don McCullin. McCullin's new work in Africa reaches one of the last corners of the earth where signs of outside influence are few, though they appear ominously significant. Over the last two years Don McCullin has travelled south from Addis Ababa in Ethiopia to the valley of the Omo River leading down to the border with Sudan. There he has entered the tribal lands of the Surma, the Gheleb, the Bume, the Erbore, the Bene, the Bodi, the Karo, the Hamar and the Mursi. Extraordinary body paints decorate many of their bodies. Metalwork adorns their limbs, and, in the case of the Mursi, huge circular plates extend their lower lips and piercings open up large holes in their ear lobes. Ritualistic stick battles are enacted with ferocity. Rifles and machine guns are often cradled in the hands of warriors. The violence McCullin witnessed was staged but real dangers were close. African tribespeople can present another face of the exotic to those of us in modern, developed cultures, especially if the photography recognises nothing of their dignity but all of their exoticism. McCullin knows too much to fall into that trap. McCullin's subjects retain their dignity and also become heroic. We, the viewers, can be amazed by their strength and beauty, and all the more so because McCullin's compassionate photography enables us to understand their vulnerability. McCullin's photographs will be prefaced by extracts from his diaries.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #172019 in Books
• Published on: 2005-08-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 176 pages

Review
"'No one has surpassed - in breadth, in directness, in intimacy, in unforgettability - the gut-wrenching work produced by Don McCullin.' Susan Sontag"

From the Publisher
'No one has surpassed - in breadth, in directness, in intimacy, in unforgettability - the gut-wrenching work produced by Don McCullin.' Susan Sontag

About the Author
Don McCullin grew up in north London. He worked for the Sunday Times for eighteen years and covered every major conflict in his adult lifetime until the Falklands war. The finest British photojournalist of his generation, he has received many honours and awards including the C.B.E. His home is in a Somerset village.

Customer Reviews

Tribal dignity
Don McCullin is unquestionably one of the great photographers of our time. Readers who have almost any other of his books will need no encouragement if I say this is absolutely up there with his many other great achievements.
The volume, handsomely produced as always by Jonathan Cape, focuses on tribes in southern Ethiopia. Ethiopians are rightly admired for their outstanding physical beauty - it was a complete privilege to me to have spent sixteen days in remote areas of the north and west of the country about five years ago - and McCullin majors on this quality. However what comes over even more strongly is the resolute dignity of the people - shot after shot catches the upright independence of these often deeply primitive people. I am left full of questions as to what the future holds for these remarkable cultures, while also being amazed that McCullin convinced so many of them to allow him near them so naturally with a camera.
I am sure you could spend hours enjoying this book. It is rare and wonderful.