Fishermen, Weligama, South Coast, Sri Lanka

Steve McCurry

With his shrewd journalistic approach to photography, Steve McCurry has captured some of the most iconic images of the 20th and 21st centuries. McCurry creates straightforward representational photographs that seek to illuminate areas of the world and create narratives from honest depictions of people and places. The photographer is well known for his contributions to magazines such as National Geographic, which featured Afghan Girl—his infamous 1985 image—on its cover. The woman’s haunting green eyes and her location in a country hidden behind the Iron Curtain contributed to the photograph’s significance. “I think the best way to actually photograph somebody is to really look into their eyes,” McCurry has said. “The eyes are so expressive, they say so much about a person.” In recent years, McCurry has continued his journalistic investigations of the less fortunate in areas closer to his home, photographing abused domestic workers in the United States.