Steve McCurry is an American editorial photographer best known for his photograph “Afghan Girl” which originally appeared in National Geographic magazine.
Above is the first line of the Wikipedia entry for Steve McCurry a photographer (along with Don McCullin) I hoped that one morning I would wake up one morning and find that I was him.
Not only his images but the man himself inspires me. The fact that he got himself into Soviet-occupied Afganistan in 1979, to the fact that he is the author of the modern “Mona Lisa” ( is there another more famous portrait not of a celebrity?) the mans contribution to the world as a whole and not just photography is vast.
The purpose of this blog is to review his “one-minute masterclasses” available at the Phaidon website.
Well perhaps a review is a bit grand, but the simple nuggets of advice contained in the videos are pure gold dust. It is simple information that we all do know ( I hope me do) in our hearts, but we all forgot.
Steve McCurry is I guess what you could call living proof of what happens if you don’t forget to:
• Treat your subjects as fellow humans
• Say “Hello!” Or interact with the on human level
• Watch and wait, i.e. if you see a good background wait for the subject appear.
All photographers should watch these videos every six months; it will only take up 10minutes of your life, and you will be a better person for it.
Bibliography
Steve McCurry (2015) in Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_McCurry (Accessed: 15 December 2015).
Steve McCurry’s One-Minute Masterclass | photography | agenda (no date) Available at: http://uk.phaidon.com/agenda/photography/video/2011/october/26/steve-mccurrys-one-minute-masterclass/ (Accessed: 15 December 2015).