Please

Thanks Bill. Don's work seems to have been a backdrop to my child and adulthood. Powerful and an indictment of so much evil in our world. Along with Eugene Smith an inspiration too.

Mike.
 
Thanks Bill, incredible series of photos, and excellent accompanying text.

Randy

P.s. Why are the photos all credited to 'McMullin' ?
 
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=136819

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=136819

Thank you for the link.
Burning Man compared to Real photos of war, simply shattering.
A friend and Photojournalist once said " I should have shot landscapes.
When change arrived all my years of work, were worthless.."
 
Thanks, Bill. There have been an awful lot of reporters and photographers killed in action in the last few years. Some of them almost seem like adreno-junkies for going back and back. Sadly, they seem to be suffering many of the same maladies the returning soldiers exhibit and have a very hard time fitting back into the society they left.

I understand the logic of reporting, especially with images, just how horrible war and death are. The problem is that the people who really need to see this do not. Under the Bush administration, photos that showed any of the horror were banned. But who was going to really look at them anyhow. The politicians who send the troops to war didn't serve...and most don't even have children who might go in harms way. So why bother? I don't know. It's important to report, that's for sure - how else can the politico's be kept somewhat honest.

I've been thinking lately about how much the USA could have accomplished in the last 15 years if all the money spent on war was instead spent on relieving suffering, making peace, making friends with needy countries - people who need us - and generally spending money and expecting some positive result in the end. It's sad to see how this country has squandered the leadership role for good.

This isn't just a Republican party problem, it's a USA problem. After 9-11, USA had the eyes of the world on us and the support of every country and person on the planet. I just can't help thinking how we might better have marshaled that support toward better results.

Maybe there is some way to muster the grit of the war photogs (or copy their style and dedication) to go out and bring positive change in a meaningful and peaceful way.

Tom
 
SausalitoDog said:
Under the Bush administration, photos that showed any of the horror were banned.
Tom
Click to expand...

Tom -

It's not just forces outside of journalism that limit the photography. I've had a magazine delay the presses for pictures (not an inexpensive proposition), then not print them saying, "These are too horrible."

Which, of course, is the point of the pictures.
 
I saw Don McCullin interviewed on Parkinson. It was the most rivetting piece of television in years. He has what I think it was Ursula Le Guin who called it 'the far look.' You don't get over an experience like his.
 
Bill Pierce said:
Tom -

It's not just forces outside of journalism that limit the photography. I've had a magazine delay the presses for pictures (not an inexpensive proposition), then not print them saying, "These are too horrible."

Which, of course, is the point of the pictures.
Click to expand...

Exactly!

It kind of stops you in your tracks, doesn't it.

The world is a much more cynical one than when we were kids. We have lost our sense of optimism (beyond hoping the stock market will always go up) and have not replaced it with any common goals. The Peace Corps still exists but who knows (or cares) any more. Sports have become big business and organized religion has stumbled and needs to refocus.

We live in a world/country with the power to do more good than at any time in history and we still solve problems with guns not brains.

I'm not negative, just confused.

So, soldier on... Somewhere in this connected age, we will - can - must sort it out.

Tom
 
I used to stop off in London for a day to get rid of jet lag before a foreign assignment and go to the Queen’s Fishery to pick up a trout bag, the standard gadget bag for a lot of us. I remember picking up a trout bag before heading into Northern Ireland. The clerk clearly saw that I was not a gentleman fisher and said, “Mr. McCullin was here a week ago.”

In Lebanon I came upon an insane asylum that had been bombed that day. It was chaos and the perfect symbol of the insanity of war. My scoop. I said so to the superintendent. He said that was exactly what Mr. McCullin had said earlier that morning.

One night a bunch of us were having dinner in Beirut. Donald said, “You know, I couldn’t do what I do without you guys.” There was a reverential silence. But I couldn’t help myself. I blurted out, “What an immense load of crap.”

Donald, for the most part, worked alone. He is the best of us, not only in war zones, but documenting the people and the landscapes of his homeland.
 
Bill, you stir terrible things. And it is true that journalists and photographers have paid dearly for their presence on the ground of the Indochina and Vietnam wars.

Requiem , Vietnam Indochina , 1946-1975

http://patrick.guenin2.free.fr/cantho/infovn/requiem.htm

Among the dead , Dickey Chapelle. Henri Huet photographed her last moments , when she receives the final sacraments :

Huet%2C_Chapelle.jpg


Henri Huet, who is himself died in 1971 with his friends Larry Burrows, Kent Potter and Keizaburo Shimamoto , still in Vietnam.

As you can see I have long hesitated to speak on this subject. But the death of Võ Nguyên Giáp raised my doubts. This great soldier , struggling to liberate his country , was our most implaccable adversary but never our enemy.

This photo of General Giap with Hô Chi Minh, harvested on the web, tells us all about the fact that this war was from the outset lost to French and American.

Giap-Ho.jpg
 
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