Steve McCurry
"What is important to my work is the individual picture. I photograph stories on assignment, and of course they have to be put together coherently. But what matters most is that each picture stands on its own, with its own place and feeling."
- Steve McCurry
Born in 1950, Steve McCurry is an American photographer who has been working for more than four decades. He has published over 20 books and has had scores of major exhibitions at museums around the world. He joined Magnum Photos in 1986 and is now a contributor.
After graduating from university, McCurry made his first of what would become many trips to India. Traveling with little more than a bag of clothes and another of film, he made his way across the subcontinent, exploring the country with his camera.
It was after several months of travel that he met a group of refugees from Afghanistan, who smuggled him across the border into their country, just as the Russian invasion was unfolding. Emerging after weeks embedded with the Mujahideen, McCurry brought the world the first images of the Soviet assault in Afghanistan.
McCurry went on to document other conflicts around the world, but prefers to focus on the human condition and ways in which cultures and peoples share common characteristics, activities and emotions.