Steve McCurry

Born in 1950 , McCurry's career was launched when, disguised in Afghan garb, he crossed the Pakistan border into rebel-controlled areas of Afghanistan just before the Soviet invasion.  "As soon as I crossed the border, I came across about 40 houses and a few schools that were just bombed out," he says. He left with rolls of film sewn into his turban and stuffed in his socks and underwear.  These images were subsequently published by in New York Times, Time, Paris Match.  McCurry covered more armed conflicts like the Iran, Lebanon, The Gulf War and The Afghan Civil War.  

McCurry wants his viewers to take away from his photographs  the "human connection between all of us." He believes there is always some common thing between all humans despite the differences in religion, language, ethnicity, etc.

"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." McCurry also states, "I have found that I get completely consumed by the importance of the story I am telling, the feeling that the world has got to know. It's never about the adrenaline. It's about the story."