“Most of my images are grounded in people. He has an uncanny ability to cross boundaries of language and culture to capture stories of human experience.

McCurry is driven by an innate curiosity and sense of wonder about the world and everyone in it. McCurry’s work has been featured in every major magazine in the world and frequently appears in National Geographic magazine with recent articles on the Hazaras of Afghanistan, Buddhism, Tibet, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and the temples of Angkor Wat, Cambodia. He focuses on the human consequences of war, not only showing what war impresses on the landscape, but rather, on the human face. Steve McCurry has covered many areas of international and civil conflict, including the Iran-Iraq war, the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, Beirut, Cambodia, the Philippines, the Gulf War, and continuing coverage of Afghanistan. He has won the Olivier Rebbot Memorial Award twice.

That was the same year in which he won an unprecedented four first prizes in the World Press Photo Contest. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including Magazine Photographer of the Year, awarded by the National Press Photographers’ Association. His coverage won the Robert Capa Gold Medal for Best Photographic Reporting from Abroad, an award dedicated to photographers exhibiting exceptional courage and enterprise. When he emerged, he had rolls of film sewn into his clothes of images that would be published around the world as among the first to show the conflict there. His career was launched when, disguised in native garb, he crossed the Pakistan border into rebel-controlled Afghanistan just before the Russian invasion. “If you wait,” he realized, “people will forget your camera and the soul will drift up into view.” It was in India that McCurry learned to watch and wait on life. After working at a newspaper for two years, he left for India to freelance. Born in Philadelphia, McCurry graduated cum laude from the College of Arts and Architecture at the Pennsylvania State University. Member of Magnum Photos since 1986, McCurry has searched and found the unforgettable many of his images have become modern icons. Best known for his evocative color photography, McCurry, in the finest documentary tradition, captures the essence of human struggle and joy. Steve McCurry, recognized universally as one of today’s finest image-makers, has won many of photography’s top awards.

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