Don on digital

After a lifetime of shooting film and doing his own printing in the darkroom, Don McCullin began using digital cameras seriously in 2012. Here he reflects on his experiences with the new technology…

How are you getting on with digital SLRs? In some respects I’m struggling. If I’d had digital cameras years ago I could have taken them to places where you couldn’t possibly have used film, and taken some good pictures. Being able to shoot at ISO1600, 3200, is amazing. The AF systems are fantastic too – once you get the AF right there is nothing you can’t shoot on the move. On the other hand, I will have an everlasting love affair with film. You can contaminate digital images with Photoshopping, and I wonder if a lot of things we see now are not always truthful. Digital cameras are a different kind of application, and require a different mindset. So I can do nice things with them, but it’s difficult for a man of my age, who has been using film for 60 years, to fall in love with something else. There is no denying they are remarkable, though.

Do you use digital cameras for landscapes? I do, but I prefer film. I read The Times every day, and I keep seeing these early morning landscapes they publish with extraordinary dawns – it looks like something from the American West. Digital can do this for you, but it tends to exaggerate, and gives you chocolatebox scenes with very accentuated colours. I like to use black and white in my landscapes, as I can create drama with Wagnerian skies, metallic, dark and threatening…