Steve McCurry

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Steve McCurry (born February 24, 1950 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American photographer, freelancer, and photojournalist.

His most popular photo of the "Afghan Girl," the girl with the piercing green eyes who appears on National Geographic's front page.

McCurry has worked on several assignments for National Geographic and has been a member of Magnum Photos since 1986; the National Press Photographers Association's Year of the Year; and two first-place prizes in the World Press Photographer Competition (1985 and 1992).

Life and work

McCurry was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and attended Penn State University. He had intended to study cinematography and filmmaking but instead, he obtained a degree in theater arts and graduated in 1974. When he began photographing for the Penn State newspaper The Daily Collegian, he became interested in photography.

McCurry went to northern Pakistan where he heard two Afghans who told him of the war across the border in Afghanistan, after a year living in India.

McCurry's career began shortly after being disguised in Afghani garb, crossing the Pakistani border into rebel-controlled areas of Afghanistan just before the Soviet invasion. "I came across about 40 houses and a few schools that had just bombed out right after crossing the border," he says. He was left with rolls of film sewn into his turban, as well as stuffed in his socks and underwear. These photos were later released by The New York Times, Time, and Paris Match, and they earned him the Robert Capa Gold Medal for Best Photographic Reporting from Abroad.

McCurry covered more conflict, including the Iran-Iraq War, the Lebanon Civil War, the Khmer civil war, the Islamic insurgency in the Philippines, the Gulf War, and the Afghan Civil War. McCurry came close to death twice. He was almost drowned in India and survived an airplane crash in Yugoslavia. McCurry's work has appeared in magazines around the world, and he is a regular contributor to National Geographic.

McCurry focuses on the toll that humans take on humans. He wants to demonstrate what war does not only impact the landscape but also the people who live in that area. "The majority of my images are rooted in people." I am looking forward to the unguarded moment, the essential soul peeking out, and a person's face tattooed on a person's face. I'm trying to figure out what it's like to be the person, a person trapped in a larger context that you might imagine as "the human condition." The "human link between all of us" is what McCurry wants his viewers to see away from his photographs. Despite the differences in faith, language, ethnicity, etc., he believes there is always a common trait between all humans. "I have found that I am completely consumed by the story I am telling," McCurry says, which gives the feeling that the world must know." It's never about the adrenaline. It's about the story." However, McCurry has seen some "worrific" and "distressing" sights. He uses his camera as a "shield" in situations like these because it's much more convenient to view these events using a viewfinder.

McCurry had just returned from Tibet on September 10, 2001. McCurry was alerted that the World Trade Center was on fire in the morning of September 11, the morning of September 11. He climbed to the roof of his building and started photographing, unaware that it had been a plane that had struck the towers. Both of the towers collapsed on the roof when McCurry was on the roof; "they were just gone." It didn't appear that it was possible. You might be seeing something, but you don't really know what you're seeing." McCurry and his assistant returned to Ground Zero after the towers fell. "This really fine white powder was everywhere and all this office paper," the author says, but there was no recognized office furniture—no filing cabinets, telephones, or computers." It seemed as though the entire thing had been pulverized." McCurry died later that night and fell back early on September 12, as he didn't have any media experience and had to sneak past security. He was eventually found and led off the Ground Zero; he did not return.

Denis Delestrac's "Moment of the Human Condition" television series depicts McCurry.

In 2005, McCurry switched from film color slide film to digital photography for the ease of editing in the field and sending images to photo editors. In an interview with The Guardian, he said he had no regrets about working in film. "Perhaps old habits are impossible to overcome, but the overwhelming majority of my coworkers have switched over to... The consistency has never been better. For example, you can work in very low light situations.

McCurry shoots in both film and digital, but he prefers shooting with a transparency camera. The last roll of Kodachrome film to ever be produced by Kodak was given to Eastman Kodak. McCurry shot the roll, which was processed by Dwayne's Photography in Parsons, Kansas, in July 2010. The majority of these photos were shared on the internet by Vanity Fair. "I shot it for 30 years, and I have several hundred thousand photos of Kodachrome in my archive," McCurry says. To celebrate Kodachrome's passing, I'm trying to shoot 36 pictures that act as some sort of wrap-up. It was a wonderful film.

He was hired by Microsoft in 2015 to photograph images in New Zealand's areas of New Zealand, which were used as wallpapers in Windows 10.

Steve McCurry's book "Steve McCurry" came out in 2019. Taschen's Animals collection includes a collection of his favorite photographs of animals.

McCurry adopted Afghan Girl in December 1984. In the Nasir Bagh refugee camp near Peshawar, Pakistan, it depicts an almost 12-year-old Pashtun orphanage. McCurry discovered the child after hearing "unexpected groans" from children inside a one-room school tent for girls. "I noticed this one little girl with those stunning eyes, and I knew that this was really the only picture I wanted to take," he says. This was the first time the child had been photographed. The photograph was selected as "the most recognized photograph" in the National Geographic magazine's history, and it was used as the cover photograph on the June 1985 issue. The photograph has also been used on Amnesty International brochures, posters, and calendars. The woman, Sharbat Gula, was missing for more than 17 years until McCurry and a National Geographic team discovered her in 2002. "Her skin is weathered; wrinkles have appeared, but she is as vibrant as she was five years ago," McCurry said.

In 2019, a vlogger and professional photographer by the name of Tony Northrup released a documentary accusing McCurry of obtaining the photograph under false pretenses, which was also endangering Gula's health while doing so. McCurry's public relations staff retaliated by accusing Northrup of slander, and the clip was deleted. However, it was reloaded with a number of corrections, as well as a supporting paper that detailed a number of Northrup's sources. Sharbat Gula herself had already posted some thoughts on the photograph, which had also been published by BBC News in 2017.

McCurry was accused of extensively manipulating his images with Photoshop and other techniques, including deleting people and other attributes.

McCurry did not deny making major changes specifically in a May 2016 interview with PetaPixel, implying that he now thinks of "visual storytelling" and "art." However, he later stated that others print and ship his images while travelling, implying that they were to blame for the significant manipulation. "That's what happened in this case." It goes without saying that what happened with this photo was a mistake for which I must bear responsibility," he said.

McCurry made similar remarks when discussing the issue with a writer for Time's Lightbox website, but not suggesting that the manipulation was done by anyone without his knowledge. In fact, the Time writer made the following comment: "With increasing evidence of his own manipulations, McCurry has been compelled to confront his position in photography." In neither interview or interview, he did not specify when the heavy photo manipulation started or which photos had been altered. Nonetheless, considering the scandal, he said, "I am committed to only using the service in a minimal manner, even for my own trips." "Reflecting on the situation: Even though I felt that I could do what I wanted to photograph in an aesthetic and compositional sense, I now see how difficult it must be for people who believe I am still a photojournalist."

Jean-David Morvan and South Korean artist Kim Jung Gi published a biographical graphic book about Steve McCurry in 2016. 911 is the city of McCurry, France.

McCurry's True Color, directed by Denis Delestrac, produced by Intrepido Films and Polar Star Films, and distributed by Dogwoof and Karma Films, among others, was officially selected at the Doc NYC film festival (USA), Festival de Malaga (Spain), and Glasgow Film Festival (Scotland). In June 2022, the Spanish cinema first cinema premiere took place.

Source

Awards

• 1987 – Medal of Honor for coverage of the 1986 Philippine Revolution, Philippines, White House News Photographers Association
• 1992 – First Place Nature and Environment Oil-Stricken Bird, Kuwait First Place, General News Stories: Kuwait after the Storm Children's Award: "Camels Under a Blackened SKy", World Press Photo Competition
• 1992 – Magazine Feature Picture Award of Excellence: Fiery Aliens First Place, Magazine Science Award: Camels Under A Blackended Sky First Place, Gulf News Sky: Kuwait After the Storm, Picture of the Year Competition
• 1992 – Oliver Pebbot Memorial Award: Best Photographic Reporting from Abroad on Golf War Coverage, Overseas Press Club
• 1993 – Award of Excellence for Rubble of War, National Press Photographers
• 1994 – Arts and Architecture Distinguished Alumni Award, Pennsylvania State University
• 1998 – Award of Excellence, Portraits: Red Boy, Picture of the Year Competition
• 2002 – Award of Excellence for "Women of Afghanistan"
• 2002 – Photographer of the Year
• 2003 – C-recipient of the New York Film Festival God for documentary, Afghan Girl Found
• 2003 – The Lucie Award for Photojournalism
• 2005 – Photojournalism Division – International Understanding through Photography award, Photographic Society of America
• 2006 – First Place, Buddha Rising, National Geographic, National Press Photographers Associate
• 2011 – Leica Hall of Fame Award
• 2014 – Photography of Appreciation Award
• 2018 – Golden Doves for Peace journalistic prize issued by the Italian Research Institute Archivio Disarmo
• 2019 – Induction into the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum