Steve McCurry Research Center

About Steve McCurry

Steve McCurry, recognized universally as one of today's finest image makers, has won many of photography's top awards. Best known for his evocative color photography - McCurry, in the finest documentary tradition, captures the essence of human struggle and joy. Member of Magnum Photos since 1986, McCurry has searched and found the unforgettable. Many of his images have become modern icons.

Born in Philadelphia, McCurry graduated cum laude from the College of Arts and Architecture at the Pennsylvania State University. After working at a newspaper for two years, he left for India to freelance. It was in India that McCurry learned to watch and wait on life. He realized "If you wait, people will forget your camera and the soul will drift up into view."

His career was launched when, disguised in native garb, he crossed the Pakistan border into rebel-controlled Afghanistan just before the Russian invasion. When he emerged, he had rolls of film sewn into his clothes, images which would be published around the world as among the first to show the conflict there. His coverage won the Robert Capa Gold Medal for Best Photographic Reporting from Abroad, an award dedicated to photographers exhibiting exceptional courage and enterprise.

He is the recipient of numerous awards which include Magazine Photographer of the Year, awarded by the National Press Photographers Association. That same year he won an unprecedented four first prizes in the World Press Photo Contest. He has also won the Olivier Rebbot Memorial Award twice.

Steve McCurry has covered many areas of international and civil conflict, including the Iran-Iraq war, Beirut, Cambodia, the Philippines, the Gulf War, and continued coverage in Afghanistan. McCurry's work has been featured in every major magazine in the world and frequently appears in National Geographic magazine with recent articles on Afghanistan, Tibet, Iraq, Yemen, and the temples of Angkor Wat, Cambodia.

McCurry returned from an extended assignment in China on September 10, 2001. His coverage of the rubble at Ground Zero on September 11, is a testament to the heroism and nobility of the people of New York City. He said, "You felt the horror and immediately, instinctively understood that our lives would never be the same again."

A high point of his career was the rediscovery of the previously unidentified Afghan refugee girl which many have described as the most recognizable photograph in the world today. When he finally located Sharbat Gula after almost two decades, he said, "Her skin is weathered; there are wrinkles now, but she is as striking as she was all those years ago."

McCurry is driven by an innate curiosity and sense of wonder about the world and everyone in it. He has an uncanny ability to cross boundaries of language and culture to capture stories of human experience. "Most of my images are grounded in people, and I try to convey what it is like to be that person - a person caught in a broader landscape, that you could call the human condition."