Biafra, 1969

For this exhibition, my choice of photographer is Don McCullin for his outstanding war photography work.  Don, who once endured service in the Royal Air Force is renowned as one of the worlds’ leading photojournalists but recognised hugely for his war documentation.

I will be looking at the ways in which Don depicts ‘war’ in what would be a desensitized context.

The way that I feel he does this is by the way that his work is not glamorised, it is not fake and it does not cover up the truth. This is all done by the way that Don does not sensitize the situation by thinking a photograph would be socially unacceptable.

Due to the way that the others in my group are basing their research on the more brutal and gory side of desensitized war documentation, I will be looking into a more selective factor of it - That being the way in which Don portrays the affect war has on the innocent civilians.

Biafra 1969
http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0309/lm03.html

The above photograph was taken by Don Mccullin in 1969, at a war camp in Biafra, Nigeria.

This was taken a couple of years after Igbos, Nigeria declared themselves independent and were at war. Over one million people died in three years. This is a prime example of desensitized documentation on the affects war has on civilians. It is showing one of what, at the time, ever so surprisingly, was Nigeria’s biggest killers – starvation or disease due to the way that families were put into these camps because of this African civil war.

Don said, “I was devastated at the sight of 900 children living in one camp in utter squalor at the point of death – I lost all interest in photographing soldiers in action”.