:00:00. > :00:16.Welcome to HARDtalk. I'm Stephen Sackur.
:00:17. > :00:26.Just occasionally, a photograph has the power to dig deep into our
:00:27. > :00:34.collective unconscious. The photograph of the dead boy, dead on
:00:35. > :00:40.a beach, galvanised a response to the migration crisis. My guest today
:00:41. > :00:46.is world renowned photographer Don McCullin. He has taken unforgettable
:00:47. > :00:52.images that have defined conflicts from the Apra to a writ. Does he
:00:53. > :01:04.believe photographs can change the world? -- by our front and Beirut.
:01:05. > :01:29.-- Biafra. Don McCullin, welcome to heart
:01:30. > :01:33.talk. Thank you. Today we live in an era where people later pictures
:01:34. > :01:41.every single day onto the Internet and wonder whether you feel the
:01:42. > :01:49.power of the photograph has been by looted? Not until this week when we
:01:50. > :01:58.saw a photograph of a soldier holding a dead child. I do not think
:01:59. > :02:03.that single image has moved like nothing in decades. I think that
:02:04. > :02:12.photograph really shifted peoples slightly hard and attitude on
:02:13. > :02:17.immigration. Some pushed aside the immigration story and brought the
:02:18. > :02:21.human touch to the situation. Thinking not just about that picture
:02:22. > :02:26.but of some of your pictures that we will talk about in the course of
:02:27. > :02:35.this interview, stuck in people 's minds the years and decades... Do
:02:36. > :02:39.you think those photographs are obvious at the time to the
:02:40. > :02:43.photographer or only afterwards, when you see what you have captured
:02:44. > :02:51.in an instant that you then begin to think this might have amazing
:02:52. > :02:56.impact? Absolutely not. The kind of photographer I am, I can see right
:02:57. > :03:02.away before I press that button. Can you? Absolutely. It is not about
:03:03. > :03:07.being a professional and knowing. I look a situation building and I know
:03:08. > :03:13.exactly the moment, when I press that button, I know right away. In
:03:14. > :03:17.the old days you had to sometimes await a couple of weeks when you got
:03:18. > :03:26.home to England if you were on a foreign assignment and you hold your
:03:27. > :03:29.breath when you hold that negative and 90% of the time I have been
:03:30. > :03:35.right about that decision. Having said all that and having discussed
:03:36. > :03:39.previously about the dead child picture, I think this pictures come
:03:40. > :03:45.and go. Do not Inc these pictures after a while do not make much
:03:46. > :03:53.difference in the world we live in. -- do not think. News stories are
:03:54. > :03:58.transmitted so quickly and turnover so quickly and there is always
:03:59. > :04:04.another tragedy and people tend to forget and start concentrating on
:04:05. > :04:10.daily problems. I want to come back to the sort of long-term impact of
:04:11. > :04:14.photography and look at some of your most famous news photographs but
:04:15. > :04:19.before that, I want to take a step back for people who do not know you
:04:20. > :04:27.and I want you to tell me about your up reading -- up bringing and being
:04:28. > :04:31.raised in serious poverty in London after the war and whether that gave
:04:32. > :04:36.you an inclination to go into the darker corners of light to give a
:04:37. > :04:42.voice to the underprivileged? Was there a connection that? Yes, when I
:04:43. > :04:50.was a child, I grew up in a miserable place in north London. We
:04:51. > :04:55.had a couple of rooms beneath the ground level and I had an invalid
:04:56. > :05:00.father who died at the age of 40 and my mother became the father. There
:05:01. > :05:06.were three other apartments, as you might call them, and then the war
:05:07. > :05:11.was on so I knew what it was like to be bombed and it was quite
:05:12. > :05:16.terrifying. I was evacuated as I became a temporary refugee myself
:05:17. > :05:22.going to Somerset and then to the north of England which was very
:05:23. > :05:27.harsh. In a way, might ground... And I do not like to harp on it too
:05:28. > :05:32.much... My background was quite a good way to me to go into a harsher
:05:33. > :05:36.world of tragedies that I eventually entered into and when I looked at
:05:37. > :05:43.things, I could smell poverty, I could feel the pain, I was never
:05:44. > :05:47.hungry as a child, I must say, but I really was the right person for that
:05:48. > :05:55.kind of journey into that kind of dark this, tragedy, violence and
:05:56. > :06:00.suffering. When he started going around the world photographing
:06:01. > :06:05.conflict, your first each to become famous was taking close to your
:06:06. > :06:11.home. You call it the governor 's. What I love about this, it is quite
:06:12. > :06:17.a staged photograph that it catches something about the group of young
:06:18. > :06:21.men, one has to say young men living close to the edge of the law, living
:06:22. > :06:29.in a very poor postwar district of London. Would this be what today we
:06:30. > :06:33.call a gang? I suppose you could say that. First of all let me say that
:06:34. > :06:40.this photograph has a slightly theatrical look about it that it is
:06:41. > :06:50.staged, of course, they said, take a picture of us and go and get your
:06:51. > :06:59.camera. I was in Africa covering a war in 1955 and I had never used a
:07:00. > :07:05.camera. It was a brand-new camera. Ran up the house, this was in the
:07:06. > :07:12.street I lived. The irony is the way these people are dressed - they look
:07:13. > :07:15.like bankers... They look very smart they were from a very poor
:07:16. > :07:21.neighbourhood and seen as, frankly, a criminal element. They were not so
:07:22. > :07:25.much criminal element that a criminal element came to challenge
:07:26. > :07:33.them and in doing so, policemen came to intervene and the other crowd
:07:34. > :07:37.that came, one of them stabbed the policemen and he died literally
:07:38. > :07:43.yards from that photograph was taken. What I take from that, you
:07:44. > :07:49.knew violence and new how to look after yourself. Soon after taking
:07:50. > :07:54.that picture, because it became well-known as a sign of The, young
:07:55. > :07:58.people in gangs, in London... I think the Observer newspaper to
:07:59. > :08:05.queue up and you were sent to cover conflict in north London but Cyprus
:08:06. > :08:22.and then was all over the world. Was it, in a way, our match adrenaline
:08:23. > :08:28.fuelled -- a Biaframacho infused effect? I put up the front to make
:08:29. > :08:34.people believe I was the man who was not afraid. Early on you made a name
:08:35. > :08:44.for yourself. You went off to Cyprus to cover the war and by the early
:08:45. > :08:52.70s you were doing other conflicts, including Biafra which led to a
:08:53. > :08:58.terrible famine. That is when, it seems to me, a real dark edge and it
:08:59. > :09:04.your photography. This is a very well-known picture, I should say,
:09:05. > :09:09.this is distressing but we felt we should show it because they were so
:09:10. > :09:15.many children and young people suffering in that world. Before I
:09:16. > :09:22.got to Biafra, I had been to Vietnam which was a bigger canvas. Believe
:09:23. > :09:29.it or not, this woman is 24 years of age, I mean, she could be 64. There
:09:30. > :09:33.is something furious about this photograph, in the far distance
:09:34. > :09:39.where the other person is sitting, I can spot some writing. I thought,
:09:40. > :09:45.when I have taken I will read what is scribbled on this world and it
:09:46. > :09:49.said today are you a reborn. It was such a moving statement and when I
:09:50. > :09:55.saw this woman... It was about civilian suffering at this stage,
:09:56. > :09:59.normally wars are about soldiers and it is amazing how the shift as big
:10:00. > :10:04.focused entirely on the civilians than what the soldiers get up to.
:10:05. > :10:12.You are part of that shift. I suppose if your empathy showed the
:10:13. > :10:16.real story was with the bystanders, with the civilians and,
:10:17. > :10:19.particularly, the children. I am guessing that the more you focused
:10:20. > :10:31.on them, the more difficult it became so you personally to to put
:10:32. > :10:36.up with what you are experiencing. I had a family of my own. At first war
:10:37. > :10:42.is exciting. Then you start wondering, why am I here? Am I
:10:43. > :10:49.having an adrenaline rush and going in the wrong direction? You use the
:10:50. > :10:59.word sometime ago, is said there were times when you felt like a
:11:00. > :11:03.mercenary? Yes. The 24-year-old woman clearly on the edge of
:11:04. > :11:09.starvation trying to feed her baby... In a terrible, cynical sense
:11:10. > :11:16.she is a prop, in a way, for the work you are doing. There is a
:11:17. > :11:22.danger because I composed it in a way which is stylish but
:11:23. > :11:28.compassionate. There is a danger that it becomes an icon, it becomes
:11:29. > :11:33.our. Do you feel uncomfortable when people like me, years later, invite
:11:34. > :11:40.you and we discuss it in terms which, in a sense, are not about her
:11:41. > :11:45.any more, her individuality and her story has been lost? I feel
:11:46. > :11:51.uncomfortable because I am aware of what you are saying and I know it is
:11:52. > :11:54.coming and I do feel uncomfortable because I have made a name for
:11:55. > :12:00.myself in photography and I do not wear the laurels comfortably. I know
:12:01. > :12:06.I am open to all kind of criticism and attack at eye and basically...
:12:07. > :12:10.Originally I was only the messenger. I bring these images back, I want
:12:11. > :12:17.you to feel some responsibility for this person's situation. You did not
:12:18. > :12:26.create it, neither did I but at the end of the day I do have a hell of a
:12:27. > :12:31.lot of integrity in me. Let's talk about lines and crossing lines, you
:12:32. > :12:37.talked about the desire to intervene and do something. I think there is
:12:38. > :12:43.one particular case where you actually intervened in Cyprus. There
:12:44. > :12:47.was an old lady caught in crossfire and you thought she was bound to die
:12:48. > :12:56.and at some point you cross a line and you just abandon the Observer
:12:57. > :13:00.and got involved? If I can indulge myself, it is a similar kind of
:13:01. > :13:05.attitude may be of somebody who won a Victoria Cross who said I am not
:13:06. > :13:10.going to stand this any more and do something. I was watching this lady
:13:11. > :13:14.coming down the road being helped by a British soldier who was playing a
:13:15. > :13:18.Nato role at the time and there was a massive battle and you could see
:13:19. > :13:22.the old lady was not going to make it and, I thought, I am not just
:13:23. > :13:28.going to sit here and watch this. I was taken over by human decency and
:13:29. > :13:33.are just put my cameras down and I belted in and got her and took her a
:13:34. > :13:38.way. She did not weigh very much. It was like carrying a rate the old.
:13:39. > :13:42.All of a sudden, I lost it and had to do something to stop it if you
:13:43. > :13:49.lost it then, how would you be sure on future assignments that you would
:13:50. > :13:53.not keep on losing it? That you would fail to do your job is one of
:13:54. > :13:59.the most famous fatal journalist of your generation -- photojournalists
:14:00. > :14:04.of your generation because you'll humanity was coming through too
:14:05. > :14:10.much? I think I could change the word humanity partially from the
:14:11. > :14:16.fact that I had a guild. I knew I was stealing these images. These
:14:17. > :14:23.people did not say it note to me what I knew what I was doing. -- did
:14:24. > :14:27.not say no to me. I know how far I could push things but I was never
:14:28. > :14:32.really without compassion or integrity so standing in front of
:14:33. > :14:39.the starving Biafra woman made me feel really terrible knowing that
:14:40. > :14:41.these pictures wind up in a magazine in front of people, you know, who
:14:42. > :14:55.could help change things. Let's talk about another, perhaps
:14:56. > :15:00.the most famous photograph of yours. This is a photograph not of a
:15:01. > :15:04.suffering civilian, but the soldier. It is a US soldier in
:15:05. > :15:09.Vietnam. Many people will know this picture rather well. What is it, do
:15:10. > :15:16.you think, you are the author of it, what is it about this picture that
:15:17. > :15:22.made it so... Such a connection for so many people? Well, I think we
:15:23. > :15:26.expect soldiers to be... You know, to handle themselves. We expect them
:15:27. > :15:29.to get through it. And if they don't they have backup, like the medical
:15:30. > :15:33.teams, and they can be evacuated. This man is suffering from shell
:15:34. > :15:40.shock. He looks literally wide-eyed with fear. Yes, but the men around
:15:41. > :15:45.him didn't respect his position. They thought he was shirking the
:15:46. > :15:51.issue. And you know, we all look like that after two weeks at this
:15:52. > :15:55.battle. It was during the Tet offensive in 1968. We all look that
:15:56. > :16:01.after two weeks of sleeping and foxholes and next the debtor bodies.
:16:02. > :16:05.-- next two dead bodies. New age like this man has aged. What strikes
:16:06. > :16:08.me as so important about the still photographs that you produce, and
:16:09. > :16:12.not just yourself, other photographers as well, is that they
:16:13. > :16:16.live in our memories so much longer than so much of the video we see of
:16:17. > :16:21.the important news events of the last few decades. What is it, do you
:16:22. > :16:28.think, about a still picture that can penetrate, oftentimes, deeper
:16:29. > :16:32.into us than moving images? I think it is because it is much more
:16:33. > :16:39.haunting in a way. The still picture, in a way it is quiet. It is
:16:40. > :16:44.haunting, what it can be loud. It can slightly torment you, because
:16:45. > :16:48.you feel guilt that you're not in that position. You can carry away
:16:49. > :16:55.this, or try and run away from this image. I have always thought,
:16:56. > :17:00.maybe, what I did was to make you see the eyes, in the case of the
:17:01. > :17:05.people I photographed, in the case of the starving mother and this
:17:06. > :17:10.man. See the eyes. The eyes are all telling, and the eyes are all
:17:11. > :17:13.accusing. Can I now centred on the yourself? You know, we have talked
:17:14. > :17:18.about the mental state of some of your subjects. What about your own
:17:19. > :17:24.mental state? How close to complete this bad did your job take you? --
:17:25. > :17:28.complete the spat? Walking into a Biafra hospital and seeing 800 dying
:17:29. > :17:33.children, when these children saw you coming, they thought there is a
:17:34. > :17:38.white guy, he is bringing aid -- despair. And all I did was to walk
:17:39. > :17:47.in with (CHEERING) cameras around my neck. And I saw some of those
:17:48. > :17:50.children actually dropping and dying -- two Nikon cameras. So it was
:17:51. > :17:54.never an easy journey back to England knowing I was going to a
:17:55. > :17:57.family of my own, well fed, and occasionally throwing food away at
:17:58. > :18:04.lunchtimes and mealtimes. So I played a very tricky game with my
:18:05. > :18:09.life, trying to kind of cleanse my heart aches and my sorrows. These
:18:10. > :18:12.images are never... It is not the photographs I took which I share
:18:13. > :18:15.with other people. It is the memories that I'd managed to harbour
:18:16. > :18:19.in my own mind. So to answer your question, they took its toll on me a
:18:20. > :18:25.bit. Do you want question, they took its toll on me a
:18:26. > :18:29.bit. Do you -- are you haunted still by some of the things you have seen?
:18:30. > :18:33.I am actually, like men being executed in front of me in Beirut,
:18:34. > :18:37.in the Congo, where the cruelty is incredibly bad, in the Belgian
:18:38. > :18:44.Congo. Even today, these things, they will never go away from me. But
:18:45. > :18:48.I have always said to the magazine bosses, no, I won't get on the
:18:49. > :18:53.plane, and take the air ticket and go there. It was my own choosing to
:18:54. > :18:56.go that -- I could always have said. Some of your friends and colleagues
:18:57. > :19:00.in the same business as yourself, other photojournalists and writers,
:19:01. > :19:06.they don't come back. They balance the risks, and from time to time
:19:07. > :19:14.they get it wrong. I'm thinking of people like Matt Tom Lynch or Marie
:19:15. > :19:19.Colvin. That must take its toll on you when you worked alongside them
:19:20. > :19:23.and they didn't come back -- Matt Tomlin. Well, I feel very grateful
:19:24. > :19:27.that I have managed to survive. I am very grateful that I managed to
:19:28. > :19:30.survive. Since 1981 there have been more than 1000 people in the media
:19:31. > :19:34.profession who have lost their lives. The numbers are going higher
:19:35. > :19:39.and I put it bluntly to you. Do you think frankly that particularly
:19:40. > :19:43.photographers who have to get closest to the action on the
:19:44. > :19:47.frontline, do you think that they these days are taking insane levels
:19:48. > :19:51.of risk as Mac considering they are not all set by proprietors of
:19:52. > :19:56.newspapers, they are now beginning to get very kind of queasy about
:19:57. > :20:00.sending people into places that are so dangerous, like Iraq and Syria.
:20:01. > :20:04.They don't want to take the risk, and some of these guys pay their own
:20:05. > :20:10.airfare and go there and die. So it is quite shocking, in a way, that
:20:11. > :20:14.the list that we are talking about, the 1000, will grow and grow and
:20:15. > :20:18.grow. Well, when you say that to me, Don McCullin, I just wonder why
:20:19. > :20:23.you, even though you are not obviously full time devoted to
:20:24. > :20:27.photojournalism, why you still from time to time insist on going back.
:20:28. > :20:33.You are in your 80th year, and it seems you have a plan to go to Iraq.
:20:34. > :20:36.He enter Syria three years ago and then you said it makes me feel
:20:37. > :20:40.sick, these days. And actually ashamed. And he said, I'm not ever
:20:41. > :20:45.going to do it again. And yet here you are, I believe, planning a trip
:20:46. > :20:49.to Iraq. Do you know, I felt slightly redundant just sitting at
:20:50. > :20:53.home watching BBC News or any news bulletins, reading in the
:20:54. > :20:56.newspapers. I read all the papers I can get my hands on. I feel slightly
:20:57. > :21:01.redundant just reading second-hand reports. I want to go there and see
:21:02. > :21:04.it for myself. But even though you said after Syria I now realise this
:21:05. > :21:07.doesn't make a difference, we can't change things. I am photographing
:21:08. > :21:10.things today that I was photographing 40 years ago and
:21:11. > :21:16.humanity doesn't learn, and things don't change, and I'm sick of it.
:21:17. > :21:22.That's what you said. I suppose I'm suffering from hypocrisy, really. At
:21:23. > :21:24.least I am earning up to it. But I photographed the English landscape
:21:25. > :21:28.where I live but I am running out of options. I am getting older, and I
:21:29. > :21:33.think while I can do something, you know, for the last time, as if it
:21:34. > :21:37.was the last time, sometimes publish a book and say it was the last
:21:38. > :21:42.book, but if it was the last that's that means I am finished and washed
:21:43. > :21:46.up. And what do I do then? Just sit in my house and look at the sunset?
:21:47. > :21:52.No. It is interesting, I want to look at one last picture from you.
:21:53. > :21:56.This is a work close to your house, a beautiful land and site makes
:21:57. > :22:00.skyscape from Somerset and you have said, somewhat controversially to my
:22:01. > :22:05.mind, that in terms of legacy you would like people to remember it you
:22:06. > :22:08.as much for the sort of photographed as for the photographs of suffering
:22:09. > :22:13.and conflict. That's quite true, and the reason is that the English
:22:14. > :22:16.landscape is under such threat. Every time I looked over the hills
:22:17. > :22:20.where I live now there is another new house gone up. And I am fearful
:22:21. > :22:26.of the wind turbines, and I want the countryside to look kind of
:22:27. > :22:30.Christine, like this. This is a beautiful hill, I am standing on a
:22:31. > :22:34.Bronze Age hillfort just on the edge of my village. I don't want England
:22:35. > :22:39.to change, I want the landscape... It is a very important part of our
:22:40. > :22:42.lives, the landscape. It allows us to breathe and gives us hope and if
:22:43. > :22:49.we cover it in concrete and roads and cars, what will there be left
:22:50. > :22:52.for us? I want to end with quite a simple thought, really. May the
:22:53. > :22:56.importance of the path you did take on the conflicts that you have
:22:57. > :23:02.pictured is that your photographs did change people's mines, and
:23:03. > :23:08.maybe, in a small, small way, help change the course of history --
:23:09. > :23:13.minds. Do you believe that? Not totally, no. I think that the minds
:23:14. > :23:17.of the people are changed, possibly would have converted anyway. And
:23:18. > :23:22.what I left behind as a token of... You know, of a much bigger picture
:23:23. > :23:26.that I think is coming. Nothing can be bigger than this migration
:23:27. > :23:32.tragedy that we are looking at. And when I saw the news of... You know,
:23:33. > :23:36.women and children being gassed and hosed down with these water cannons,
:23:37. > :23:41.I was so embarrassed to be a human being, I think... You know, if this
:23:42. > :23:44.is the best we can do, when people have lost everything, to actually
:23:45. > :23:49.kind of inflict physical misery on them on top of that, I think, have I
:23:50. > :23:54.succeeded in any way? I very much doubt it, really. After all these
:23:55. > :23:58.photographs, you've ended up with a pretty bleak view of humanity. I
:23:59. > :24:01.have 5000 photographs in my house is stored in boxes and when I look at
:24:02. > :24:08.them I feel really let down by the fact that what have I've been doing
:24:09. > :24:10.for the last 50 -60 years, I have been taking these photographs and we
:24:11. > :24:13.are still looking at massive tragedies in the world, and most of
:24:14. > :24:19.all on the continent of Africa, North and South. We have the end
:24:20. > :24:21.there, but Don McCullin, thank you very much for being on HARDtalk. It
:24:22. > :24:42.is a pleasure, thank you. Tuesday was a pretty mixed bag
:24:43. > :24:46.of weather, to say the very least.