Steve McCurry (born 23 April 1950) is an American photographer, freelancer and photojournalist. Her photograph of an Afghan girl with piercing green eyes has appeared repeatedly on the cover of National Geographic magazine for over 30 years. Steve McCurry is one of the leading figures in contemporary photography for over three decades. His name has been dedicated to dozens of magazine and book covers, more than a dozen books and countless exhibitions around the world.
Steve McCurry is best known for his vivid color photographs that highlight social issues in global geopolitics more broadly : his photography encompasses conflicts, traditions and cultures – keeping the human factor in everything. McCurry has traveled extensively to photograph war zones, burning oil fields, refugees, shipbuilding yards and natural disasters. He is known for his early work in Afghanistan where he documented the human toll of the Soviet-Afghan war in the late 1970s.
Steve McCurry got his start in photography when he attended Pennsylvania State University where he studied film and film. Steve McCurry continued to follow armed conflictes, including the Lebanese Civil War, the Afghanistan Civil War, the Gulf War, the Cambodian Civil War, the Iran-Iraq War, and the Islamic Uprising in the Philippines. After weeks of being associated with the mujahideen, McCurry presented the world with the first footage of the conflict in Afghanistan,
McCurry took his most famous photograph, The Afghan Girl, during the 1980s while photographing in a refugee camp in Afghanistan, a vivid portrait of a young girl with eerie green eyes (formally identified in 2002 as Sharbat Gula), a touchstone of his career. McCurry took the picture a few minutes later in a tent in a Pakistani refugee camp during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, but he never re-entered the girl’s name
The photographer who took this famous photograph is Steve McCurry who discovered the girl in 2002, 17 years after her identity was unknown. McCurry was born in Philadelphia in 1950 and has been a member of Magnum Photos since 1986. McCurry has received numerous awards, including the magazine photo of the year from the National Press Photographers Association, the centenary medal of the Royal Photographic Society [2] and two first prizes in the World Press Photo Competition (1985 and 1992).
McCurry was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and attended the Pennsylvania State University. His sister Bonnie McCurry Voske (who also runs their studio) estimates that over three decades since he began his career as a war and conflict photographer in Central Asia, he has captured more than a million news and travel photos and is one of the most highly regarded photojournalists of all time and is part of the elite Magnum Photos collective.
A highlight of his career was probably the cover photo of National Geographic of a previously unknown Afghan refugee, whom he moved and photographed almost two decades later – the most recognizable photograph in the world today.
Through McCurry’s lens, we discover that we value the beauty and quiet dignity of each creature – this kaleidoscopic collection is both a beautiful travel story and a touching tribute to the creatures that inhabit our planet – Also available in two signed and limited editions, each with a signed print.
All products on Conde Nast Traveler are independently selected by our editors and included in How I Taken This Shot talk to some of our favorite photographers about what needed to be done to get the perfect shot, from location and equipment to the impromptu solution needed to get it right.
Perhaps his work will be seen as the level of skepticism and insecurity pursued by photographers such as Ouiji, Robert Capa, Joe Rosenthal and others, but I suspect viewers will simply remember the iconic picture of an Afghan girl taken during National Geographic’s golden era, which was synonymous with “great photography” for a generation of Americans. On September 1, a young Afghan woman waited to board a flight to Philadelphia with her family.
The veteran is one of more than 100,000 people who were evacuated by Allied forces from Kabul after the Taliban controlled Afghanistan in August. Taken by Italian photographer Alessio Mamo for the Guardian and appearing on the front page of a British print, her image resembles an Afghan girl taken by American photographer Steve McCurry.
After a few months of traveling, he found himself crossing the border into Pakistan and some of his best films are Pax Americana and the Making of Weapons in Space (2009, producer Mark Akhbar, corporate director) and Sand Wars (2013), which have won 15 awards at more than 40 festivals, including the Golden Panda and Greenpeace Award and the Gemini Award. He first worked with Polar Star Films in 2016 and directed the movie Freed Up.
