David Hurn

The Magnum Photos legend has just published a retrospective of his long and distinguished career. Niall Hampton asks him what can buyers expect to see

- Niall Hampton

With a photographic archive spanning six decades, it's not surprising that David Hurn has been busy producing a book to showcase his life's work. On sale now, the 142-page volume, titled David Hurn: Photographs 1955 - 2020, contains some of the photographer's key images, as well as some lesser-known ones.

Shot in black and white, Hurn's photos, which he describes as 'non-fiction', document a wide range of subjects and capture events 'as they are' without the need for new realities to be created. While the book includes an essay by Isaac Blease and captions to place the images in context, Digital Camera readers keen to discover some of Hurn's thoughts about photography should visit his Instagram page, where selected images from his archive are accompanied by incisive commentary.

Are you pleased to have finished the book - does it feel like a burden has been lifted?

I've been photographing for 60 years, which is a long time, and I've worked in that non-fiction world which is loosely called documentary. It has been important to me that I don't manipulate anything or change anything; one wakes up in the morning to a new world and records that world as accurately as one can and that has been sacrosanct to me, as much as possible, for 60 years. You certainly think it would be fun to do a book and I spent a long time on it, so the book is exactly as I want it to be. Whether that's what other people like is a different matter.

Once you do a book like this, you can't redo it. You want it to say, 'this is my life's work' so in a sense the burden has gone because if it's right, then that's what you've been working towards for all your life. This sounds a bit pretentious but that's what it is. And the book is exactly as I want it so whether people like it or don't like it, it's their right. To me, it's as good as I can do and it's as simple as that.