But it somehow captured the imagination of people around the world, in a sense summing up both the intensity and despair of conflict in Pakistan. Wherever he is, McCurry loves to photograph portraits of local people, and he has taken many equally powerful portraits both before and after he shot this one.

The image resonates deeply with a wide and diverse audience. Arguably McCurry’s most iconic image, and certainly his most famous shot. It was simply called “Afghan Girl” and it was a portrait of a young girl with stunningly intense, green eyes. In 1984 during another visit to the sub-continent, at a camp in Peshawar, Pakistan, McCurry shot an image which would define his career, and which is one of the best known photojournalistic images in the world. He would return to Afghanistan and stay for two months, and he has been back many times since. “It was a turning point for me,” he says. Later, he took the photos to National Geographic and Time magazine. Then the Russians invaded in late 1979, and McCurry found himself as the only working photographer on hand to shoot the invasion. It was something he had always wanted to do. The story they told him piqued his interest, and within a short space of time he was following them back across the border into Afghanistan to photograph a civil war. “There’s the heat and the crush of humanity, but it’s a fascinating place.”Īfter 18 months he found himself in Pakistan, where he came across Afghan refugees. McCurry says the environment in that part of the world was intense.

“I researched story ideas before I left and I hit the ground running,' he says.

McCurry’s first stop was the Indian sub-continent, where he spent two years producing photojournalistic images. It’s a quality that brings an opulence to a scene. Originally this was a term used by cinematographers to denote that time of day when the setting or rising sun casts everything in a rich golden light. In this shot McCurry has captured Agra’s train station during the ‘golden hour’. “I wanted to see the world and visit cultures all over the planet.” “I wanted to follow my instincts and intuition,” he says. Stills photography, however, was a craft where you could work outdoors, and more importantly to the young photographer, you could simply “start work”. He had studied filmmaking at university, but discovered that it was a collaborative effort, usually involving a large number of people. He wanted to see the world he says, “to wander and explore at my own pace”, and he wanted to do it in far-flung locations, where the cultures and environments were vastly older than that of his home country.

Some photographers can spend a lifetime on local news and develop a satisfying career, but McCurry always had other plans. Steve McCurry’s career in photography first began with a job on a local paper in the unusually named town of King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, USA.

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