The world through his eyes

Within minutes of standing in the lobby of Singapore’s Asian Civilisations Museum, Steve McCurry is greeted by a series of awestruck fans. The day before, as the renowned American lensman welcomed guests to his first solo exhibit in the country, “The Unguarded Moment,” the same thing happened. Students, photographers, and photography enthusiasts from all corners — Hong Kong, Turkey, Australia, name it — couldn’t help but turn into polite groupies and autograph hounds. It was amazing.

Born in Philadelphia in 1950, the image-maker got hooked on photojournalism when he started snapping pictures for his university paper. “It was all pretty seamless,” McCurry recalls. “I graduated in November 1974 and I started working for the newspaper a month or two later. My first assignment was a portrait of a group of firemen who had gotten some awards.”

Crossing Borders

As a theater arts major with a huge crush on cinematography, he says that his influences as a twentysomething were more “film-related — Orson Welles, Kubrick, Kurosawa, Satyajit Ray from India.” But it was traveling that set his life on its current award-winning path.

Crossing the Pakistan border into rebel-controlled Afghanistan shortly before the Soviet invasion in 1979, McCurry was the first to show the unfolding conflict. The powerful images he took during his 35 or so trips to the country — during “periods of invasion, war, truce, drift, and relative peace” — have been turned into a book, In The Shadow of Mountains, an ideal companion piece to the 2007 movie, The Kite Runner.

“That’s wonderful. Who took it?” he laughs as I show him a stunning photo of Kabul I stumbled upon in a January 2008 issue of British Esquire. The credit read “Steve McCurry,” of course.

The Afghan Girl

But the picture that would sink deep into the world’s collective memory — the one that would inspire “perhaps more letters in our history,” wrote National Geographic editor-in-chief Bill Allen in the magazine’s “100 Best Pictures” edition — is a shot of Sharbat Gula, a refugee girl from Afghanistan. In 1984, Steve McCurry encountered the young Pashtun orphan at the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in Pakistan.

“She was in a school, in a crowd of students. I asked the teacher if I could photograph some of them,” he tells me. After a few false starts — “We couldn’t really speak each other’s language, so once she sat down I made sure the light was basically on her face” — the unwitting subject eventually delivered, piercing the camera with her haunted, and haunting, green eyes. National Geographic had found their June 1985 cover star. 

Return To Pakistan

Back then, no one knew her name; for almost 20 years, history would merely refer to her as the “Afghan girl,” a nickname that was both generic and iconic. Then in January 2002, a National Geographic team returned to the same Pakistani refugee camp to search for her. By then, she was married and had three daughters of her own; she had aged significantly. They told the story through an “Explorer” documentary that aired in March 2003. 

The reunion resulted in yet another cover shot. For the April 2002 issue, however, Sharbat Gula wore a burkha while clutching the celebrated photo she had never seen.  

“She didn’t really care. She was really puzzled by the whole thing. She lived a really sheltered life and wasn’t really familiar with magazines or the media. So for her it was all kind of bewildering,” McCurry recounts. 

If Steve McCurry were a pop star, the Afghan girl photo would be the hit that owned the charts, the song he’d be expected to sing at all his concerts forever. Was he willing to talk about it over and over?  

“It’s a powerful picture, but it’s hard to really imagine it having a life beyond that one magazine cover,” he explains, putting his feet up on the chair. “You can only be thankful that people respond to your work in a good way. I think most photographers would be happy to have a picture which was internationally known or iconic.”

Tips From The Master

True enough, during the next day’s master class at the museum’s Ngee Ann auditorium, eagle-eyed participants fielded questions about the legendary image and Steve McCurry gamely answered. “From a technical viewpoint, muted light works better,” he shares. “Portraiture is really about light. If it’s too bright, people’s eyes tend to close.”

He also reveals the innate artistry and attention to detail that have made him a top-tier talent. “Don’t overload your photo with too many colors. Keep it graphically clean. Make sure the elements in your composition can be separated so your eyes can breathe,” McCurry advises, pointing to the coincidental shapes and shadows in his masterpieces.

“We ask elite professionals like Steve for feedback on how to improve our products,” goes Vincent Sim, senior manager at Epson Singapore. “We have been working with him for 10 years now and he has several Epson printers at his studio in Queens, New York. He creates most of his exhibition prints, including the ones you see here, using the Epson Stylus Pro 9880 on our Premium Luster Paper.”

Graphic Tapestry

Steve McCurry admits that it’s always been difficult to be a National Geographic photographer. “It’s very competitive.” As a member of Magnum Photos, a global photographic cooperative made up of the industry’s elite, he is used to capturing events that shape history; he has also done sittings with people who influence the way we see the world, from Aung Sang Suu Kyi to Imelda Marcos.

The message he wishes to convey through his work, through his vivid depictions of life in South and Southeast Asia, is both sensible and idealistic.   “Mankind has a dark side — no question about it. But we also produce some really interesting culture,” McCurry says of our graphic tapestry. “If you came from outer space and landed here you’d see some crazy stuff. We’re here in this world for a brief amount of time. The best way is to enjoy it.”

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Special thanks to Vincent Sim, Andrew Chan and Claire Chan of Epson Singapore. For full details, visit the Epson/Steve McCurry ‘The Unguarded Moment’ site at www.epson.com.sg/stevemccurry. The exhibit will be on display at the Asian Civilisations Museum until July 19. Epson is the main sponsor of the Month of Photography Asia 2009 festival that promotes and celebrates the art of photography.