There’s a haunting beauty, a raw, unflinching truth, in how photographs can freeze moments of profound suffering, moments that sear into your mind and refuse to let go. Shooting the Darkness isn’t just a book; it’s a visceral plunge into the heart of the Troubles, seen through the lenses of those who risked everything to document it. I borrowed it from the library last week, and it’s clung to my thoughts like damp Aberdeen mist, a stark reminder of photojournalism’s power and the human stories stitched into each frame.
Based on Broadstone Films’ acclaimed documentary, this collection gathers the voices of photographers like Alan Lewis, Paul Faith, Martin Nangle, Stanley Matchett, Trevor Dickson, Hugh Russell, and Crispin Rodwell. These aren’t just names, they’re witnesses, chroniclers, and, in their own way, survivors. Their accounts breathe life into iconic images: Bishop Edward Daly’s blood-stained handkerchief fluttering on Bloody Sunday, Sean Downes’ tragic fall to an RUC plastic bullet in 1984, the brutal attack on corporals Derek Wood and David Howes in 1988. Each shot is a gut punch, a story of risk, loss, and the soul-deep toll of standing in the crucible of history.
I took this photograph of a member of Cumann na mBan, an Irish women’s republican paramilitary organisation, in the late 1970s on the Falls Road. The woman was part of an active service unit that appeared at a rally and caused quite a sensation.Photograph: Martin Nangle
What grips you isn’t just the images’ raw power but the unfiltered narratives behind them. These photographers didn’t choose this path, they were thrust into it, becoming war correspondents in their own streets. Amid bombings, riots, and funerals, they wielded their cameras like lifelines, capturing the Troubles’ grim pulse. Their techniques were born of necessity, fast lenses in dim light, snatched moments amid chaos, film pushed to its limits. No tripods, no do-overs, just instinct and grit. Alan Lewis once described dodging debris to frame a shot; Crispin Rodwell spoke of the split-second timing needed to catch a fleeing figure. It’s a masterclass in making do, where every click was a gamble.
In January 1971 a call came into the office and I wasn’t going to answer it because I was ready to go home. But I lifted the phone and it was a contact from the old Official IRA. He said that a reporter and I should go out to the Albert Bar, at the junction of Albert Street and the Falls Road. When we got there, this chap asked us if we’d like a drink. So, a bottle of stout each and the next thing a man came in and nodded to the chap that was with us for us to come out. When we got outside they were just finishing tying a boy to one of the big lamp standards. They poured a bucket of tar over him, then a pillowcase of feathers, and then put a plaque around his neck saying why it was being done. Then another man appeared and they did the same thing to him. I took one shot of each and was just ready to leave when I heard this shouting. It was a priest coming down the road on his bicycle. He came charging across the road, saying, Don’t you take pictures of those poor fellas, and tried to grab the camera off me. But the Official IRA boyos, they got hold of him, told him to move on. Photograph: Trevor Dickson
Their work was raw and unsettling, yet vital, a testament to photojournalism’s roots in unvarnished truth. They faced ethical minefields daily: how to document suffering without exploiting it, how to stay human when the lens becomes a shield. “I began to think I’d almost lost my humanity,” one confesses, a line that chills you to the bone. These weren’t posed portraits or staged scenes, they were fragments of lives caught in the crossfire, preserved with a clarity that still stings decades later.
IRA communications smuggled out of the Maze Prison in March 1981 at the start of the hunger strike in which 10 republican prisoners starved themselves to death. Messages were written on sheets of toilet paper in microscopically small handwriting, made into little pellets, wrapped in cling film and then brought out in the mouths of prisoners relatives. The sender of this letter later died when a bomb he was throwing at a West Belfast police station exploded prematurely. Photograph: Crispin Rodwell
What hits hardest is their enduring connection to the people in their frames. Some know what became of their subjects, where they are now, how they rebuilt, or if they didn’t at all. Paul Faith recalls a young boy he photographed at a funeral, later meeting him as an adult scarred but standing. This thread of human fate, stretching across decades, lifts Shooting the Darkness beyond a historical record into a living testament of resilience. It’s a rare depth, a tribute to their dedication, showing that stories don’t end when the film runs out, they ripple through lives, binding photographer and subject in a quiet, enduring pact.
This picture was taken by my good friend and colleague Brian McMullan during one of 1970?s big riots in Ballymurphy. The army were firing tear gas and rubber bullets, and I stood with them to get a good photograph of the riot. As I walked back to Brian, I said, I hope you’ve taken a picture of that? I offered to take one of him in the same position but he replied, Do you think I’m stupid? Photograph: Trevor Dickson
Growing up in Aberdeen, where sectarian shadows linger in football rivalries and social divides, I feel a chilling relevance here. The Troubles aren’t distant history, they’re a mirror to our own tensions, from the Old Firm’s echoes to subtler rifts. These images bridge past and present, urging us to look harder at the fault lines around us. They’re not just Northern Ireland’s story; they’re ours too, a call to see the humanity beneath the headlines.
Two little girls on swings near Clifton Street in Belfast in the 1960s. At that time, none of us could have imagined how much life in the city would change over the next decades. Photograph: Stanley Matchett
Why It Matters: The Soul of Photojournalism
The signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement at Hillsborough Castle on November 15th, 1985. The agreement, signed by British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald, gave the government of Ireland a consultative role in Northern Ireland affairs. We were all called down for the signing – security was incredibly tight, and the room was packed. I remember getting into the room and getting the picture, but not getting anywhere near where I wanted to be. All the big agencies knew this was a world-changing time, so all their photographers were up at the front. When I took this picture I was still a young lad, and I had no idea that I was taking a picture that people would still be talking about today, it was a moment of history. The sense of history in the picture has got stronger as the picture has got older. Photograph: Hugh Russell
This book is a masterclass in visual storytelling, a genre that does more than freeze time, it demands we engage with it. Each frame, be it a child’s tearful farewell or a shattered street, is a story waiting to be told, a window into pain, hope, and endurance. It’s a reminder of photojournalism’s power and responsibility, a craft that doesn’t flinch from truth, however brutal. The Troubles photographers didn’t set out to be heroes, they were doing their jobs, yet they shaped how we understand that era. Their legacy isn’t just in the images but in the questions, they leave us: How do we witness without losing ourselves? How do we honour suffering without cheapening it?
Gerry stood there motionless for more than the two seconds that the frame took. He was staring at his wedding album, which was burnt to a cinder on the floor, and he was just reflecting on that it was almost like a Hitchcock moment. He later told me that he believed that the picture got him a peerage because the British government saw that moderate nationalism didn’t have a voice in the area – after Gerry Adams had taken Fitt’s West Belfast seat – and a way of giving that voice to them was to put Gerry Fitt in the House of Lords. Photograph: Alan Lewis
Shooting the Darkness pushes that further, showing the camera as both tool and burden. It’s inspired me to look at my own work with fresh eyes, not just chasing a pretty shot, but seeking the deeper story it tells, the impact it carries. Those ethical dilemmas, balancing truth with compassion, aren’t relics of the past; they’re alive in every frame I shoot, a quiet nudge to stay human behind the lens.
For a long time, I began to think that I’d almost lost my humanity. I was taking photographs and didn’t seem to care what I’d seen, and that worried me. I was wondering what I was becoming. I didn’t like it. Then one Monday in 1974, I was coming out of a building in High Street when I heard an explosion. There had been two bombs at two cafes in Rosemary Street and I was on the scene very quickly. There were three kids who’d been in the explosions sitting on the steps of the Masonic Hall. I took a couple of frames there and went straight back down to the darkroom. I processed the film and got it into the developer. As the pictures were coming up, I stopped to look at what I had been taking. I saw the kids sitting there, on a day off school, caught up in a bomb through no fault of their own. I just started crying in the darkroom. Nobody saw me but I knew then that I was all right. I had been boxing stuff off – probably the only way to deal with it. I was relieved that I had had a release of emotion. Then I got on with the work again, knowing that I hadn’t lost the run of myself. Photograph: Alan Lewis
Shooting the Darkness doesn’t just document the Troubles, it’s a cornerstone in photojournalism’s evolution. It nods to forebears like Robert Capa’s war-torn dispatches and foreshadows modern conflict photographers capturing Syria or Ukraine. Its influence stretches beyond Northern Ireland, reminding us that every war zone has its chroniclers, risking all to show what power prefers hidden. The book’s blend of stark imagery and raw testimony has set a standard, think Don McCullin’s Vietnam work or Lynsey Addario’s frontline grit, proving that photography can be art, history, and conscience all at once. It’s a call to today’s image makers: don’t just snap, see, feel, and tell.
It was August 1989, the twentieth anniversary of the outbreak of the Troubles and there was lots of talk in Belfast that the violence was just going to go off the scale any day. I went up to Ballymurphy and, although I didn?t see any vehicles on fire, there were people squaring up to the soldiers. The squaddies were on edge ? one in particular was crouching and looking right down the street into Ballymurphy with his SA80 pointed. A woman came up and shouted right down the barrel of the gun. Although there was no physical contact it was a violent altercation ? you could see the venom and hate between the republicans and the soldiers.Photograph Paul Faith
Heavy and hard to digest, Shooting the Darkness stands apart from the layered depths of Writing in the Sand. Its unflinching honesty and the courage of those who bore witness make it essential, not a casual read, but a reckoning. It’s a beacon of strength amid adversity, a collection of lives that shape our collective memory. The weight of a child’s grief, a woman’s defiance, a photographer’s quiet scars, they linger, a testament to the cost of truth and the light found in darkness.
The police station on the Lisburn Road in Belfast was bombed on December 16th, 1986. I went up the next morning to get a picture. I noticed that the houses across the road had been badly damaged and spotted a mirror on the lawn of one of them. It amazed me that it hadn’t been damaged in the blast, and an idea came into my head right away. I propped the mirror against what was left of their garden pillar. I always tried to make something a little bit different, rather than the usual point and shoot. Photograph: Trevor Dickson
If photojournalism, history, or storytelling stirs you, this book is a must, not just for its images, but for the souls behind them. It’s sparked something in me, a resolve to chase not just moments but meaning, to wield my camera with purpose. Shooting the Darkness proves every frame can change how we see the world. It’s a tribute to resilience, theirs, ours, and the enduring human spirit that shines through even the bleakest times.
