McCurry's inexhaustible oeuvre has many facets, which he expresses with his very own visual language and has not only recorded in exhibitions but also in countless publications. His emphatic portraits of a wide variety of people and nations create a significant recognition value that testifies to his humanistic eye. Steve McCurry is a master at drawing attention to leaders who are on the fringes of society. Even these complicated, tragic pictures seem like in their composition and pigmentation mystically captured scenes that inspire amazement and reflection. But McCurry not only captures fascinating moments in a fabulous color palette, but also the negative sides of this world, for example burning oil fields in Kuwait, 1991 or the collapsed towers of the World Trade Center, 2001. He takes the viewer on journeys to remote places that are either too feared to explore or so enchanted which raises questions about the place.Ībove all, the people in their different habitats seem to be accessed like something out of a fairy tale. The American Magnum photographer shows the impressive beauty of this world in his pictures. Steve McCurry 's photographs have not only written history, but also tell stories of everyday life. He is most famous for his evocative color photography, which has captured stories of human experience that, in the finest documentary tradition, transcend boundaries of language and culture.

A regular contributor to many international journals, McCurry is a member of Magnum Photos and a recipient of the Robert Capa Gold Medal and an unprecedented four World Press Photo first prizes in a single year many of McCurry’s images have since become modern icons. Critically acclaimed and recognized internationally for his classic reportage, over the last thirty years he has worked on numerous assignments, travelling extensively throughout the Middle and Far East. This fresh new edition, expanded to feature more photographs than before, including some never-before published, creates an up-to-date and unrivalled collection of McCurry's portraiture.

This image accompanies the other remarkable faces he has encountered whilst travelling throughout the world, collected together in an engaging and moving series of unique street portraits: unposed, unstylized images of people that reveal the true universality of the depths of human emotion. The intensity of the subject's eyes and her compelling gaze made this one of the most widely and consistently celebrated portraits in the history of contemporary photography. In 1985, Steve McCurry photographed an Afghan girl for the National Geographic.

Phaidon portraits steve mccurry