Steve McCurry

    Steve McCurry is a very well-known American Photographer specializing in contemporary photography. He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and studied cinematography at Penn State University. After working for a newspaper for 2 years he made a trip to India with nothing much other than his clothes and film. He made his way to Pakistan right before the Soviet Union invasion was happening. He disguised himself as a villager and made his way into Afghanistan where he would get his most famous picture to date. The picture of an Afghan girl with bright green eyes showing. He took many other pictures of the devastation that the Soviet Union caused within their invasion of Afghanistan. The picture below of Afghan girl made it onto the National Geographic on best pictures in 1985. It really captured the pure emotion that effected the whole area of Afghanistan.

    The eyes really pop out in this image which is what the main point of the picture was to grasp. Steve also captured many moments from many wars including Lebanon Civil War, the Afghan Civil War, the Gulf War, the Cambodian Civil War, the Iran-Iraq War, and the Islamic Insurgence in the Philippines. Many of his pictures in these times were showing the villages of people suffering from these wars. He has earned many awards for his photos and in 2004 founded ImagineAsia with one main goal in mind, to provide educational opportunities and resources to Afghan kids and young adults. Steve McCurry has shot photos in both film and digital but prefers to capture photos in transparency film. He has published many books of his work and of his own life experiences. Steve McCurry takes amazing pictures but what I find more interesting is all the cultures he sees and how he captures their moments, even in times war or crisis.