Steve McCurry

Steve McCurry ( born February 24, 1950 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA) is an American photographer and photojournalist.

Life and work

After studying film and history at Pennsylvania State University, where he obtained the title of Bachelor of Arts, he worked for two years for a local newspaper, before he went to India as a freelance photographer.

He achieved international fame through his documentation of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. For this report, he was in 1980 awarded the Robert Capa Gold Medal.

McCurry reported worldwide from numerous trouble spots, including on the Iran -Iraq war, the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, Beirut, Cambodia, Tibet, Yemen, the Philippines and the Gulf War. Again and again he returns to Afghanistan. But even in India and Peru, he has photographed.

Since 1986 he has been a member of Magnum photo agency.

McCurry's most famous photo is that of " Afghan Girl". In the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in 1984 succeeded him the portrait of a young girl with bright green eyes. The striking effect of this photo is so enormous that it came to the title of National Geographic in June 1985 and since then countless times was printed. In 2002, the girl's identity could be determined. The National Geographic had organized an expedition with the participation McCurry, Sharbat Gula who managed to find.

He won numerous awards. For the election of Press Photo of the Year, he won the 1985 four first prizes in four disciplines and 1992 two first prizes. He was elected several times to the Photographer of the Year and since 2005 Honorary Member of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain.

Exhibitions

• 2013: The River of Time. Photographs from Asia 1980-2011, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg
• 2013: Overwhelmed by life. Selected images from 1980 to 2012, Museum of Arts and Crafts, Hamburg