{"id":243748,"date":"2025-10-22T14:48:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T14:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/243748\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T14:48:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T14:48:10","slug":"don-mccullin-finds-new-depth-in-still-life-photography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/243748\/","title":{"rendered":"Don McCullin Finds New Depth in Still Life Photography"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/a>A beautiful dew pond in my village with a strange sky, Somerset \u00a9 Don McCullin <\/p>\n

War photographer Don McCullin is best known for his images of shell-shocked U.S. Marines<\/a> or harrowing pictures of famine victims. His new book represents a change of pace. <\/p>\n

The Stillness of Life coincides with McCullin\u2019s 90th birthday and finds the photographer in a contemplative mood as he showcases his still life and landscape photos that he continues to take on black and white film while also delving into his vast archive. <\/p>\n

McCullin\u2019s still life arrangements were shot in his garden shed at home in Somerset, England. He\u2019s been shooting them since the early 1980s and imitates the Dutch masters by using soot from his chimney to create a background texture for his chosen objects. <\/p>\n

Many of the objects are mementos from his travels: a bronze dragon from East Asia, a junk shop vase, a Hindu goddess. He arranges disparate inanimate objects with fruits and flowers as a way of interplaying transience and permanence.<\/p>\n

The landscape photos in the book are taken in the Industrial North of the U.K., to India, Africa, and more recent images taken closer to his home in Southwest England. All in all, the book is a departure from the human-focused work McCullin is best known for. <\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>Copying the Dutch masters in my garden shed \u00a9 Don McCullin
\n \"A<\/a>A winter\u2019s victim. The end of a day in a village where I once lived, Hertfordshire \u00a9 Don McCullin \"A<\/a>Foxgloves with Chinese figures and dragon \u00a9 Don McCullin \"Silhouetted<\/a>Industrial playground, the disused steel town of Consett, County Durham \u00a9 Don McCullin \"Boats<\/a>Early morning, Gandak River, The Elephant Festival, Sonepur Mela, Patna, India \u00a9 Don McCullin \"Two<\/a>Fishermen collecting worms, Hinkley Point, Somerset \u00a9 Don McCullin \"A<\/a>Hadrian\u2019s Wall moments after a snowfall, Northumberland \u00a9 Don McCullin \"A<\/a>Self portrait in Crowthers reclamation yard, Islesworth \u00a9 Don McCullin
\n \"Black<\/a>Gladioli in my garden shed \u00a9 Don McCullin <\/p>\n

McCullin is something of a glum figure as he continually questions<\/a> the purpose of his career covering conflicts. In an interview with The Times of London<\/a> this week, McCullin declared that none of his photographs has made any difference. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s silly when anyone says, \u2018Your pictures make such a difference.\u2019 They\u2019ve made no difference whatsoever. I\u2019m preaching to the converted,\u201d he tells the newspaper. \u201cI\u2019ve spent all these years covering wars and they\u2019re never going to end.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A beautiful dew pond in my village with a strange sky, Somerset \u00a9 Don McCullin War photographer Don…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,98045,229,133718,88,58932,133719,133720,133721,128136],"class_list":{"0":"post-243748","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-blackandwhitephotography","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-donmccullin","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-landscape","16":"tag-landscapehotography","17":"tag-stilllife","18":"tag-stilllifephotography","19":"tag-warphotographer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}