mccurry – Soulcatcher Studio

Soulcatcher Studio is honored to welcome Steve McCurry to our esteemed stable of photographic artists. Steve McCurry (born 1950), recognized universally as one of today’s finest image-makers, has won many of photography’s top awards. Best known for his evocative color photography, McCurry, in the finest documentary tradition, captures the essence of human struggle and joy. Member of Magnum Photos since 1986, McCurry has searched and found the unforgettable. Many of his images have become modern icons. Born in Philadelphia, McCurry graduated cum laude from the College of Arts and Architecture at the Pennsylvania State University. After working at a newspaper for two years, he left for India to freelance. It was in India that McCurry learned to watch and wait on life. “If you wait,” he realized, “people will forget your camera and the soul will drift up into view.”

His career was launched when, disguised in native garb, he crossed the Pakistan border into rebel-controlled Afghanistan just before the Russian invasion. When he emerged, he had rolls of film sewn into his clothes and images that would be published around the world as among the first to show the conflict there. His coverage won the Robert Capa Gold Medal for Best Photographic Reporting from Abroad, an award dedicated to photographers exhibiting exceptional courage and enterprise.

McCurry is the recipient of numerous awards, including Magazine Photographer of the Year, awarded by the National Press Photographers Association. This was the same year in which he won an unprecedented four first prizes in the World Press Photo Contest. He has won the Olivier Rebbot Memorial Award twice.

Steve McCurry has covered many areas of international and civil conflict, including the Iran-Iraq war, the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, Beirut, Cambodia, the Philippines, the Gulf War, and continuing coverage of Afghanistan. He focuses on the human consequences of war, not only showing what war impresses on the landscape, but rather, on the human face

McCurry’s work has been featured in every major magazine in the world and frequently appears in National Geographic magazine with recent articles on Tibet, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and the temples of Angkor Wat, Cambodia. McCurry is driven by an innate curiosity and sense of wonder about the world and everyone in it. He has an uncanny ability to cross boundaries of language and culture to capture stories of human experience.

McCurry States, “Most of my images are grounded in people. I look for the unguarded moment, the essential soul peeking out, experience etched on a person’s face. I try to convey what it is like to be that person, a person caught in a broader landscape, that you could call the human condition.”

A high point in his career was the rediscovery of the previously unidentified Afghan refugee girl that many have described as the most recognizable photograph in the world today. When McCurry finally located Sharbat Gula after almost two decades, he said, “Her skin is weathered; there are wrinkles now, but she is as striking as she was all those years ago.”

McCurry returned from an extended assignment in China on September 10, 2001. His coverage at Ground Zero on September 11 is a testament to the heroism and nobility of the people of New York City. “You felt the horror and immediately, instinctively understood that our lives would never be the same again.”

McCurry has published many books including The Imperial Way (1985), Monsoon (1988), Portraits (1999), South Southeast (2000), Sanctuary (2002), The Path to Buddha: A Tibetan Pilgrimage (2003), Steve McCurry (2005), Looking East (2006) and In the Shadows of Mountains (2007).

Print Information: All photographic prints are Fuji Crystal Archive print photographs, made from original photographic negatives, printed under the artist’s supervision. All prints are signed, dated and numbered by the artist in pencil au verso.

Prints are produced in limited editions in three different paper sizes: 20×24″, 30×40″ and 40×60″. Limited edition print prices start at $3,500.00. The price increases as the edition sells out. Print prices are set by the artist and are subject to change without prior notice. Images are printed on demand, and therefore typically take from 4 to 6 weeks to be delivered. Please inquire if you have other favorite images by this artist, as we can offer his entire portfolio of work for sale.

Click here to view Steve McCurry: Watching and Waiting, a retrospective exhibition.

Other photographs by this artist are also available. Please contact Soulcatcher Studio
if you are interested in these or any other images.

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