Portraits

Steve McCurry never set out to take portraits. In 1985, he photographed an Afghan girl for the National Geographic. 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. This accompanies the other remarkable faces he has encountered whilst travelling throughout the world, collected together in an engaging and strangely moving series of unique street portraits: unposed, unstylized images of people that reveal the true universality of the depths of human emotion. Critically acclaimed and recognized internationally for his classic reportage, over the last twenty years he has worked on numerous assignments, travelling extensively throughout the Middle and Far East. McCurry has won first prize in the World Press Awards, and was named Magazine Photographer of the Year in 1984. 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.