Afghan Girl                                   Rene Nicholas

Artist - Steve McCurry
Title - Afghan Girl
Media - photography
Dimension -120 x 90 cm
Date - December 1984


Steve McCurry was born on February 24, 1950 in Philadelphia attended Penn State University. He originally planned to study cinematography and film-making, but ended up getting a degree in theater arts. He became interested in photography when he started taking pictures for the Penn State newspaper The Daily Collegian.
After working at Today's Post for two years, he left for India to freelance. His career was launched when, disguised in native clothes, he crossed the Pakistan border into rebel controlled areas of Afghanistan just before the Soviet Invasion. When he emerged, he had rolls of film sewn into his clothes. Those images, which were published around the world, were among the first to show the conflict. His work has been featured worldwide in magazines and he is a frequent contributor to National Geographic. Steve McCurry focuses on the human consequences of war, not only showing what war does to the landscape, but rather, on the human face.

An artist statement given by Steve McCurry was that " If you wait people will forget your camera and the soul will drift into the view."

Steve McCurry took his most recognized portrait, "Afghan Girl", in a refugee camp near Peshawar, Pakistan. The image itself was named as "the most recognized photograph" in the history of the National Geographic magazine and her face became famous as the cover photograph on the June 1985 magazine. The photo has also been widely used on brochures, posters, and calendars. The camera used was a with a Nikon FM2 camera and Nikkor 105mm F2.5 lens.

The reason why I chose this amazing piece was because I recognized it in a National Geographic magazine when I was a kid, and the girl's eyes really popped out to me and made me want to read the magazine. The way this photo connects to the theme is that its a portrait and the theme is portraits.