Don McCuillin In Africa

Product Description

Don Mc Cullin`s reputation stands as one of the greatest war photographers of our times. In recent years he has photographed the landscape surrounding his home in Somerset, but his later travels have taken him to some of the most remote regions in the world. His skill in photographing people in extreme situations has enabled him to mix with tribes on the edges of civilisation. His work among the people of Irian Jaya, including cannibals, appeared in his last book, Don Mc Cullin. Mc Cullin`s new work in Africa reaches one of the last corners of the earth where signs of outside influence are few, though they appear ominously significant. Over the last two years Don Mc Cullin has travelled south from Addis Ababa in Ethiopia to the valley of the Omo River leading down to the border with Sudan. There he has entered the tribal lands of the Surma, the Gheleb, the Bume, the Erbore, the Bene, the Bodi, the Karo, the Hamar & the Mursi. Extraordinary body paints decorate many of their bodies. Metalwork adorns their limbs, &, in the case of the Mursi, huge circular plates extend their lower lips & piercings open up large holes in their ear lobes. Ritualistic stick battles are enacted with ferocity. Rifles & machine guns are often cradled in the hands of warriors. The violence Mc Cullin witnessed was staged but real dangers were close. African tribespeople can present another face of the exotic to those of us in modern, developed cultures, especially if the photography recognises nothing of their dignity but all of their exoticism. Mc Cullin knows too much to fall into that trap. Mc Cullin`s subjects retain their dignity & also become heroic. We, the viewers, can be amazed by their strength & beauty, & all the more so because Mc Cullin`s compassionate photography enables us to understand their vulnerability. Mc Cullin`s photographs will be prefaced by extracts from his diaries.