Steve McCurry: The Haunted Eye
In The Haunted Eye, Steve McCurry returns to more than forty years of work, drawing from his vast archive to offer a less familiar view of his photography. Previously unpublished images appear alongside some of his best known photographs, revealing both the continuity of his vision and the many directions his work has taken over the years.
The book includes texts by Steve McCurry and Anne Morin. In a series of first person reflections, McCurry looks back on his way of working and on the long term projects that have shaped his career, while Morin offers a broader critical perspective on his photographic practice and archive. Moving across countries, cultures and moments of history, the book shows McCurry’s enduring interest in people and in the relationship between individual lives and the world around them.
Rather than concentrating only on the photographs that have come to define his career, The Haunted Eye explores quieter and less familiar parts of his archive. As Anne Morin suggests in her accompanying text, the book moves beyond the iconic images to uncover other territories within his work, offering a broader and more intimate reading of a photographic career spanning more than four decades.
About the Author
Steve McCurry is an American photographer born in Philadelphia in 1950. He studied cinematography at Pennsylvania State University before working as a photographer for a local newspaper. He later travelled to India, beginning a period of extensive work across South Asia that would become central to his career.
In the late 1970s, McCurry crossed from Pakistan into Afghanistan with a group of Afghan refugees, documenting the country as the Soviet invasion was beginning. His photographs were among the first images of the conflict to reach an international audience.
Over the following decades, he worked throughout the world, photographing war, disappearing traditions, contemporary cultures and everyday life, while maintaining a strong focus on the human experience. His portrait of Sharbat Gula, photographed in Pakistan in 1984 and published on the cover of National Geographic in June 1985, became one of the most widely recognized photographs of the twentieth century.
McCurry joined Magnum Photos in 1986 and is currently listed by the agency as a Contributor. His work has been published in numerous books and exhibited internationally. Among his many distinctions are the Robert Capa Gold Medal and the Royal Photographic Society’s Centenary Medal for Lifetime Achievement. In 2019, he was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame.
