Don McCullin landscapes

Apropos of nothing, or at least of very little, I thought I’d point to this lovely landscape by Don McCullin.

McCullin protests continually that we should not see him merely as a “war photographer.” Instead of protesting, he should just point to work like this, which makes the case eloquently on his behalf. Unfortunately, his landscape work is harder to find — Google for it, and you’ll mostly find links to articles about his war photography, complete with protests that he’d rather be known for the pictures you can’t find.

Now you can find one — quite an accomplished one, I think. It is difficult to do landscape in black and white, in a world where landscape photography equals colour. McCullin takes it a step further by working in winter, and eschews the other landscape cliches, the vertical wide-angle shot with foreground feature, the leading lines. He works instead in tone and texture, and with that magnificent break in the sky.