McCullin travelled to Northern Ireland on numerous occasions during 1971, working as a photojournalist for ‘The Sunday Times Magazine’. This photograph was first published as part of a photo-story entitled ‘War on the Home Front’ in December 1971. It depicts two Royal Anglian soldiers detaining a Catholic boy for searching. The soldier to the boy’s left seems bored or indifferent as he stands with his visor up and his gun pointing down, while the boy’s friend waits patiently to the side of the central group, observing two figures passing by who are obscured by a tank in the foreground. The boy himself looks directly into the lens, apparently showing no resistance to the soldiers who frame him on either side. Scenes of this type were very common in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, and McCullin has captured the sense of it being an everyday occurrence through the casual atmosphere of this image.