The images carry a dramatic feel and a preference for stormy skies that reveal an intimacy with conflict and destruction. Trees become jagged etchings across the clouds; Hadrian’s Wall, photographed in the snow, is a scar running through the countryside; a flooded field in Somerset looks like the Somme – and, indeed, prompted the Post Office to commission him to photograph the First World War battlefield, where he also shot The Road to the Somme, France.

Stieglitz was of German-Jewish origin, a fact that prompts McCullin to remark on how many of the photographers and picture editors he encountered early on in his career were from similar backgrounds; refugee intellectuals who brought European modernism with them to London. In October, Jonathan Cape is proud to publish The Landscape - the last in a long series of books, which encompasses the entirety of McCullin's working life. The morning I arrive at McCullin’s old limestone farmhouse, where he lives with his wife Catherine Fairweather, he has been up since dawn, looking out at the valley beyond his front windows to see if the sky will change. McCullin evokes dramatic painterly representations of his home county with quiet confidence, shifting between the flooded lowlands of the Somerset levels to woodland streams, nearby monuments and historic hill forts. Oft sind es eher unspektakuläre, unscheinbare Motive (Landschaften in der Nähe des Wohnorts des Fotografen in der englischen Provinz), die durch die eingefangenen Lichtverhältnisse und die Wolkenformationen am Himmel atmosphärisch sehr dicht und reizvoll wirken.The two years he spent in Somerset, however, left him with an ‘idyllic’ memory that he kept with him over the years and which eventually, in the mid 1980s, drew him back. His photography engages the energy of the land—its history, character and expression—documenting it on film and paper. After a career documenting conflict for over sixty years, iconic war photographer Don McCullin now focuses on documenting the landscape. Nowhere is this more apparent than in his repeated views of the glories of Palmyra and of the destruction of this ancient Syrian city. McCullin has been taking landscape photographs since the 1990s, capturing scenes from across the United Kingdom, Europe, and Asia when not on assignment.

The physical landscapes are not usually awesome in themselves but McCullin's treatment makes them inspiring subjects for us to enjoy. What he needs is some brightness, the sun glowing from behind the clouds, to give him the ‘Wagnerian’ skies he likes to photograph under. Often referring to the British countryside as his greatest salvation, McCullin demonstrates the full mastery of his medium with stark black and white images resonating with human emotion. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. For 60 years, he has reported on battles and destruction, chronicled starvation and inner-city poverty, and traveled the world working for newspapers including the Observer and the Sunday Times Magazine.This summer, McCullin’s hugely successful retrospective, which opened at Tate Britain last year, travels to Tate Liverpool. His experience as a traveller reinforces the sense of a man on the edge of civilisation under siege. Seeking to convey the mysterious and mystical quality of the light in this part of the world, this evocative series presents us simultaneously with overwhelming beauty and reminds us of the fragility of our natural environment.