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Sir Don McCullin: 'My life, thanks to photography, has had purpose and meaning'

Renowned war photographer Sir Don McCullin has been talking to Euronews Culture in Athens about his remarkable life behind the lens at the exhibition based on his book "Life, Death and Everything in Between."

READ MORE : http://www.euronews.com/2026/03/11/sir-don-mccullin-my-life-thanks-to-photography-has-had-purpose-and-meaning

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Transcript
00:02Sir Don McCallin is a legend of war photojournalism and is widely regarded as one of the greatest
00:07living photographers.
00:09A true witness to our era, he has documented war, poverty and human suffering with rare
00:14compassion and dedication.
00:18Over the past 7 decades, his photograph have made history and established him as a sensitive
00:22chronicler of our times.
00:24He has witnessed an imaginable atrocities around the world, has been wounded himself and has
00:29endured the loss of friends and colleagues.
00:31I was a young man, I didn't really have much of a future because I didn't have an education
00:37to start with.
00:38And then I was sent to do military service in the Air Force.
00:42I went to many countries in Africa and the Middle East and I came back to England with a camera.
00:47I wasn't particularly interested in becoming a photographer, I feel photography may have
00:55chosen me.
00:56At the end of the day I published 20, 30 books and all of a sudden I felt that my
01:04life had
01:05some purpose, some meaning.
01:07McCallum began his career at The Observer in 1959 at the age of 23.
01:13From 1966 to 1984 he worked with the Sunday Times, shaping a path that would define his career.
01:20I wanted to also make myself feel a bit important that I went to these places, I took these pictures,
01:27they have a meaning, you know, they were tragic and they were, you know, but I did them with
01:33compassion and I wanted the people to receive them with that same compassion, that they could
01:39try to understand what they were looking at was wrong.
01:42And so, in a way I had a slight evangelistic kind of attitude but I realised in the end
01:49I was kind of making a fool of myself thinking I could change the world, I couldn't.
01:55I feel that all the effort I made into showing people that the tragedy and the lack of compassion
02:02for other human beings, humanity is in a really bad mess at the moment.
02:07And it doesn't look as if it's going to get any better, if not it's going to get worse,
02:13I think.
02:13The exhibition features 47 selected photographs by the renowned war photographer.
02:17Very, very second darle managers are a bit more clairvoyance with little female individuals who
02:21And all around today, there have been a proper one.
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