Photograph by Steve McCurry
Photograph by Steve McCurry
Steve McCurry is renowned for his evocative and moving photographs of Asia and its people. His career reached a turning point in the 1980s when, disguised in native garb, he crossed into Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion. And in 1984, while visiting an Afghan refugee camp in Pakistan, he took his famous “Afghan girl” photograph, which became a National Geographic icon after it was published on the cover of the June 1985 issue. Eighteen years later, after the fall of the Taliban, an extensive search effort relocated the previously anonymous refugee, Sharbat Gula.
McCurry has covered numerous conflicts around the globe, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Tibet and its people, 9/11, and Afghanistan. His work is driven by an innate sense of wonder and curiosity about the world and its people. He has an uncanny ability to cut across boundaries of race, religion, language, and culture to capture the human experience.
Presentation Topics
Stories From the Field
McCurry shares highlights from his career on the road with National Geographic, along with some of the most fascinating stories his photography subjects have shared with him.
Steve McCurry: Face to Face
Stories have the power to inspire, motivate, transform, and heal, but before a photographer can get to the story he or she must first find a way to connect with total strangers. Go behind the scenes with this master photographer as he shares his method for capturing the essence of a person through the art of portraiture.
Close Calls
On assignment for National Geographic, McCurry has had his share of close calls—surviving a plane crash into a lake in the Balkans; riding in a lost plane, searching for the runway as it runs out of fuel over Africa; being attacked by a mob during a religious frenzy; and twice reported killed—and has emerged to tell the tales, crediting a mix of good fortune, destiny, and more than one heroic bystander.
Search for the Afghan Girl
His iconic image of the young Afghan refugee girl resonated more than any National Geographic cover in recent memory. McCurry would search the Afghanistan/Pakistan border camps for 20 years before finding Sharbat Gula again to learn her story.
The Path to Buddha
In McCurry’s latest book, beautiful and haunting portraits of the people and places of Tibet evoke the universal bond that ties together all of humanity.
Learn More About Steve:
Photographer and National Geographic contributor Steve McCurry—a dedicated fan of Kodak’s Kodachrome film—will make a special trip across the U.S. to shoot the “last roll” of this legendary film for the George Eastman House museum.
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