Shell-Shock

It was McCullin's images that helped me fall in love with photography. I first saw them as a teenager and looking at them again today they are just as strong; beautifully crafted, compassionate and unbearable...

Seeing his images of Beirut, Berlin, Biafra, Cyprus, Cambodia, Derry and Vietnam as a fifteen year old taught me more about history and conflict than any lesson in school could ever do.

"I have been manipulated, and I have in turn manipulated others, by recording their response to suffering and misery. So there is guilt in every direction: guilt because I don't practice religion, guilt because I was able to walk away, while this man was dying of starvation or being murdered by another man with a gun. And I am tired of guilt, tired of saying to myself: "I didn't kill that man on that photograph, I didn't starve that child." That's why I want to photograph landscapes and flowers. I am sentencing myself to peace." Don McCullin.