Photography is Truth
“Photography is the truth if it’s being handled by a truthful person” (Don Mccullin)
That was a crucial moment in Don McCullin documentary. Up to that point, which happened roughly towards the end of the film’s first half, I was having a strong feeling the documentary was a celebration of McCullin’s professional life as photojournalist. Nothing wrong about that: it was informative, poignant at times, rather intimate without being intrusive and respectful of the man’s humble nature. I would have still liked the film had it been strictly a depiction of his ‘illustruous” career. But that thought gave the film another layer. From there, as a viewer you could understand and apprieciate even better the tricky position someone like McCullin found himself in. As he said himself, taking pictures of wars, public executions, dead bodies, mourning families, dying children and other calamities is a job he chose to do. Yet, a job…He created for himself. Not a job of mere observation. A job of telling the “truth”. His truth – shocking, unsufferable, disturbingly sexy and poetic at times – still a job…that pushed him and his sense of morality to their limits. Or is it?
With his thought, McCullin revealed himself as being more than a hard-working reporter or a (self-confessed) war junkie. With his thought, he revealed himself as being an artist. An artivist even. And so Photojournalism became an act of transgression. Photography became a corruptive medium of (aesthetic) expression.
