Vietnam - Don McCullin, photographer

[Wapping]

The fall of Saigon, marking all but the end of the first ‘big war’ most of us can remember, was 50 years ago.

This was a reasonably interesting piece on the famous Sunday Times photographer, Don McCullin. McCullin (way before mobile phones and the internet made everyone a ‘reporter’) brought the war into people’s front rooms.

The Vietnam war in photographs: ‘I think of it every day of my life’

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The piece then expands to show examples of other photographers’ work.

 

[Simon_100]

That's a very moving article Richard. The daily exposure to images of the Vietnam war made a great influence on me growing up on the late 60's and early '70s and my 'moral view' hasn't changed much since - just much more cynical of course ...

By far the biggest impact wasn't any particular photo, grisly or otherwise, but seeing footage in colour for the first time having tea at a schoolmate's rich aunt's which brought the reality of the war to me with a punch that was almost physical. Before that the B&W images were hard to disassociate from the endless, or so it seemed, feed of WWII images that we saw weekly on All Our Yesterdays with Brain Ingliss's constant refrain, "Twenty-five years ago this week ..." Back then 25 years seemed an impossibly long time ago but of course now it feels like yesterday ...

Seeing as it's Sunday maybe a bit of light relief is OK:

 

[Robbo1200ADV]

He had an exhibition at the Tate a few years ago it was very good .There is a very good exhibition in the Hanoi Hilton in Hanoi with a lot of pretty graphic photographs of what happened in the “American war “

 

[Monsieur]

I read this article last week and recall a tv documentary about his work a few years ago.
I also recall news reports on the tv news about the war when I was growing up.
There’s another report about Vietnam in The Sunday Times this morning about the huge number of unexploded mines still in the country killing an average of 1,000 a year still.

 

[leadfarmer]

Just been watching a documentary series on Netflix called “Turning Point Vietnam”

 

[Loiq]

one of my former bosses, was a Nam Vet, his personal account and pictures came to light once at a BBQ... meaty was a word... that took on a new meaning... As it photography I've always had an interest in the work... oh my goodness, some of that stuff is proper gritty...

but the images of conflict after all while all look samey samey...

For me personally the works of ww2 AP photo journalists, seemed removed and historical even the Korean war looked like that totally from a different time.... While the stuff from Vietnam seems hyper realistic and as if it was taken yesterday... very haunting and now when you look at Iraq and the the likes of Jason P Howe some look tame but the composition is very similar.... and our attention span is so much less and the true horror is lost as the images rush past... in a swipe left, swipe right, social media culture

if you can find the doco about iraq I think it's called a good day to die Hoka Hey... there's also a book can't recall what that was called...

Jason P. Howe Photographer

Jason P. Howe is an established photographer, an occasional writer, part time guide and workshop organiser and a lifelong outdoors enthusiast who lives and plays in the mountains of southern Spain.

jasonphowe.photoshelter.com

 

[John RTW]

Robbo beat me to it. If ever you're in Hanoi, the Military Museum is a great place to spend a day. I think the display was all the imagery from all the great photographers from the Magnum agency or those featured in Life magazine. I could have spent the whole day there, unfortunately the other half's love of photography or history of the war wasn't the same.

Years ago I gatecrashed the Leica Gallery in New York, only to find the exhibition was for the book launch of a compilation of images from Magnum or Life and also a book by John Olson, Vietnam War Photographer, a down to earth guy, who sponsored by Leica was still carrying a Canon camera on himself. Lots of pretentious people there but he preferred to chat with me a fair bit, while I took advantage of the free beer.

My first job as a photographer after I got to my first drafting (posting/job), was to work for Pete Holdgate (RN Photographer) was to copy a load of imagery from the Falklands, when you have to focus on the subject and take note of getting the image perfect, this studying of image really did give you something to think about. A bit more than just flicking a page or swiping right. Obviously The Yomper being his most famous image of the war, but there were also many shots of blood and guts, but I don't think that a many of these images were put out to the public.