He lets us into his head a little. His questioning of what he's doing and why he's doing it, especially after a particularly dark incident, is continuing. He seems to be suffering from being a survivor. Or perhaps being a witness unable - except occasionally - to act on what's happening in front of him is a whole different type of guilt. Photography for me is not looking, it’s feeling. If you can’t feel what you’re looking at, then you’re never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures’ - Don McCullin I was blown away by the Don McCullin exhibition at the Tate Britain & so I’m devouring his autobiography... I also splashed out on the impressive book of pictures that accompanies the exhibition; beautifully shot, harrowing, very occasionally amusing pictures from a lifetime of photo journalism. I grew up in total ignorance, poverty and bigotry, and this has been a burden for me throughout my life. There is still some poison that won't go away, as much as I try to drive it out." [49] Honorary Fellowships (HonFRPS)". Royal Photographic Society. Archived from the original on 3 July 2020 . Retrieved 6 July 2020.

One,in particular,caught my attention.In Beirut,teenage boys play music and laugh while a corpse lies in the foreground. It’s difficult to describe the inhumanity I’ve seen. My upbringing, I think, prepared me. I was exposed to all sorts, early on. Had I been more sophisticated, I’d have had a mental breakdown decades ago. He was left all alone as he recalled all the human suffering he had witnessed during his career.He also wondered if it had been worth it to take so many risks,just for getting some photographs.At home he has spent three decades chronicling the English countryside – in particular the landscapes of Somerset – and creating meticulously constructed still lifes all to great acclaim. Yet he still feels the lure of war. As recently as October 2015 Don travelled to Kurdistan in northern Iraq to photograph the Kurds’ three-way struggle with ISIS, Syria and Turkey.

When I think of IS, I detest them beyond imagination": war photographer Don McCullin heads to Syria for new BBC4 documentary". Radio Times . Retrieved 16 December 2018.I found it ironic that I was reading about Don McCullin’s time in 1971 in the Bogside area of Derry in Northern Ireland, on Good Friday 2019, the day after a resurgence of serious unrest in Derry resulted in the death of a journalist, doing exactly what McCullin was doing 38 years ago… I have been travelling the world for the past 65 years – so I can’t explain how Turkey evaded me until recently. A couple of years ago, I had the great pleasure of meeting the charming Turkish Ambassador to London at the time, Ümit Yalçın, and it was with his blessing, and alongside my dear friend, the author Barnaby Rogerson, that we embarked on a series of journeys to discover the remains of Roman Turkey. Don McCullin was a photographer,who worked for British newspaper,the Sunday Times.War was his specialty and he repeatedly risked his life taking photographs in combat zones.