Portraits

Description

Steve McCurry never set out to take portraits. In 1985, he photographed an Afghan girl for the National Geographic. The intensity of the subject’s eyes and her compelling gaze made this one of the most widely and consistently celebrated portraits in the history of contemporary photography.

This accompanies the other remarkable faces he has encountered whilst travelling throughout the world, collected together in an engaging and strangely moving series of unique street portraits: unposed, unstylized images of people that reveal the true universality of the depths of human emotion.

Critically acclaimed and recognized internationally for his classic reportage, over the last twenty years he has worked on numerous assignments, travelling extensively throughout the Middle and Far East.

McCurry has won first prize in the World Press Awards, and was named Magazine Photographer of the Year in 1984. He is most famous for his evocative color photography, which has captured stories of human experience that, in the finest documentary tradition, transcend boundaries of language and culture.

Born in Philadelphia, Steve McCurry studied history and cinematography at Pennsylvania State University before working as a freelance photographer in India. His career was launched when he crossed the Pakistan border into rebel-controlled Afghanistan, just before the Russian invasion, to take the first pictures of the conflict. Since then many of McCurry’s images have become modern icons.

His coverage won him the Robert Capa Gold Medal for Best Photographic Reporting from Abroad, an award dedicated to photographers exhibiting exceptional courage and enterprise. McCurry has covered many areas of international and civil conflict, including the Iran-Iraq war, Beirut and the Gulf War. His travels have also taken him to South-east Asia and the spiritual temples of Angkor Wat and Cambodia, made known to many through his memorable images for National Geographic magazine.

A member of the prestigious international photo agency Magnum since 1986, McCurry is the recipient of numerous awards including Magazine Photographer of the Year, awarded by the National Press Photographers Association. This was awarded in the same year in which he won an unprecedented four first prizes in the World Press Photo Contest. He has won the Olivier Rebbot Memorial Award twice.

‘these beautiful and often uplifting images … cross the boundaries of language and culture to capture the significant and the smaller stories of mankind.’
Daily Telegraph‘McCurry can make the hellish look heavenly … incredible photographs that change the way we look at our world’
The Sunday Times Magazine

Additional information

Dimensions	1.375 × 5.25 × 7.5 in
Imprint	Phaidon Press
Format	General Trade
ISBN-13	09780714838397
ISBN-10	071483839X
Author	Steve McCurry
Audience	General / adult