Steve McCurry - Retrospective

There is an excellent photography exhibition at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery showing the work of American photo-journalist Steve McCurry. Billed as a 'UK exclusive' exhibition, it is on until 17th October. The link is http://www.bmag.org.uk/.


Steve McCurry has spent much of his career taking photographs in Afghanistan, India, Pakistan and other countries in South-East Asia. The exhibition shows examples of his work over 30 years and is a mixture of portraits, landscapes and street scenes. Not everyone will have heard his name but I am sure that his photograph of an Afghan girl, taken in 1984, will be familiar to almost everyone. Taken in Peshawar, Pakistan and titled 'Afghan Girl in Nasir Bagh refugee camp', it shows a young girl of about 13 years of age with the most intensely green eyes, turning sideways towards the camera and wearing a red shawl over her head. The photograph was featured on the cover of National Geographic magazine and, consequently, became world famous.


One of the interesting features of the exhibition was a video, shot around 2002, showing Steve McCurry's search for this girl, nearly 17 years after the original photograph was taken. He didn't know her name but was aware that the Nasir Bagh refugee camp, which still existed then, was about to be demolished and its inhabitants scattered. After a long search, with the help of a local journalist, village elders, an FBI expert in facial recognition and experts who could match the features in the eye from the original photograph with that of the adult 'Afghan girl', he was able to track her down. She was married with a small child and, although her facial features had aged, she still had those amazing eyes.


Of course, Steve McCurry has been responsible for other wonderful photographs and this exhibition includes many of them. All his portraits were wonderful but I particularly liked 'Girl in Green Shawl, Peshawar ,2004'. It was interesting how he used such a shallow depth of field in many of his portraits so that the sharpness falls away quite quickly. One portrait that I found very disturbing was titled 'Young Boy, Churmazu, 2004' as it showed a young boy of about 6 or 7, from his tears clearly distressed, holding a gun to his head and looking directly into the camera. Whether it was a real gun or not I couldn't tell but I would have liked to know the story behind the photograph.

An amusing photograph, titled 'Tailor in Monsoon, Porbandar, India, 1983' showed a smiling man, up to his neck in flood water and carrying a sewing machine so that it appeared to be floating next to his head.

Steve McCurry's compositions and use of light and colour make this an exhibition to be highly recommended for those who can get to Birmingham. I know that I shall be re-visiting it several times.