Photojournalist Steve McCarry: biography, activities, creativity and the Hermitage

Steve McCarry is an incredibly talented master of photography. He became known to the whole world thanks to a photograph of an Afghan girl with amazing green eyes, which the artist captured with the lens of his camera in a refugee camp in Pakistan during the Afghan war.

Exhibition in Russia

From September to November 2015, his remarkable works were presented to the Russian audience by well-known photographer Steve McCarry (exhibition - St. Petersburg, Palace Square).

Demonstration of his works was prepared by the Hermitage (the department of contemporary art) within the framework of the existing project called "Hermitage 20/21", which was designed to study, collect, and exhibit all kinds of art of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Simplicity and at the same time expressiveness are peculiar to the works of this amazingly talented artist.

More about this exhibition will be described below.

Steve McCarry and his works

"Afghan Mona Lisa" is not the only successful shot of the photographer. They have a huge variety.

The American photojournalist received worldwide recognition and recognition thanks to the memorable classical reports. For more than 20 years, Steve has been working for the American National Geographic magazine and for other equally well-known publications. This master of his craft has an amazing ability to always be in the right place and at the right time.

Previously, Steve covered international conflicts such as the Iran-Iraq war, conflicts in the Philippines, Lebanon, Cambodia and the Persian Gulf. Photojournalist Steve McCarry is the best foreign photo reporter, and he was awarded an annual award in this field - "Robert Kapa Gold Medal".

The most diverse, fascinating, heartbreaking and fascinating photographs of the photographer are the expositions of many exhibitions.

Biography of the photographer: youth

Born Steve McCarry in 1950 in Philadelphia. Seriously, he took a great interest in photography when he was still young, during his studies at the Faculty of Cinematography at the University of Pennsylvania. His photographs in those days were often published in student newspapers.

In 1974, after graduating from university, Steve began to work in one of the local newspapers. Active young man life in his hometown seemed boring, as he craved to bring at least some benefit to people. With this aim in 1978, the future celebrity left for India.

There he lived in the worst conditions of local hotels. He often had to risk his health and sometimes even his life. However, the beautiful and successful shots, in his opinion, compensated for all the hardships and ordeals experienced.

Hot Spots

Already in 1979, Steve went to the hot spots of Afghanistan with a view to make photo reports there. A rather complex journey brought good results. Made in 1984 in a refugee camp, a snapshot of an Afghan girl with incredibly piercing green eyes was subsequently included in the list of the 100 best photographs of the National Geographic edition. The illustrious cover with the incredibly serious adult look of the girl in 2005 was included in the top ten best in 40 years.

In 2002, not without effort, Steve managed to find again that very grown-up girl by name (as it turned out this time) Sharbat Gul and repeat the pictures of a woman, mother of three children, but with the same unchanging piercing green eyes.

Steve McCarry has received many awards not only in his homeland, but also abroad. He several times deserved the title of the best photojournalist of the year. As a military photographer, he was awarded the Robert Capa Medal .

A special place is occupied by the work of McCarry, made in New York on September 11. Before the terrorist attack, he spent the whole month in Asia and returned to America just before. He shot on his camera everything that happened, while hiding from certain authorities. The pictures clearly show the scale of the terrible tragedy that has taken place.

What the photographer says about his work

The most important thing for Steve is to be very attentive to any person, to be consistent and serious in his intentions. Only in this case the picture will turn out to be sincere.

The photographer likes to closely monitor people. It seems to him that it is the person's face that can tell a lot.

American Steve McCarry in his series of works Where We Live ("Where we live") shows a touching journey to different homes around the world. First of all, he focuses his attention on the poor and very modest houses and families living in them. He shows by his works that, despite unfavorable living conditions, each of the families or personalities is good-natured and touching.

According to the master, he does not seek glory wherever unhappiness and sorrow reign. He just wants to capture this moment and bring to all people that there is such a life, a life of need and suffering. He believes that, in general, the existence of the human is incredibly tragic, and during the periods of hostilities there is a reassessment of all values. In the background, success, prosperity and career. The main things are family happiness and health, and the main thing is the desire to survive at any price.

When giving interviews, McCarry usually says that he does not have the sensation that he is a celebrity. This is due to the fact that people know not him, but mostly just pictures.

Steve McCurry in St. Petersburg

The exposition under the name of the famous American photojournalist was represented by more than 80 of his works. As already mentioned above, the most memorable of them is a photo of a girl from Afghanistan. This unique, incredible piercing image, which leaves no spectator indifferent, was recognized in the most recognizable way.

The main theme in the works presented at the exhibition are military conflicts, rare disappearing peoples, the modern world and the oldest traditions. Each picture of it is a story of a person's life, his view of everything that is happening around.

Exhibition "Steve McCurry. The moment of defenselessness "demonstrated to the Russian viewer the whole truth of life in the faces of simple, ordinary, sometimes defenseless people seeking justice and a way out of the situation.

A lot of amazing pictures made for the entire period of his professional activities Steve McCarry. The Hermitage presented most of his best works. Through the faces of people who became involuntary witnesses of various events and disasters, the artist tried to show their incredible suffering, cruelty and violence carried by them.

In the center of attention is the history of human life and its view and attitude to everything that happens. In this unique way, the artist shows the suffering, deprivation and devastation of people who have become unwitting participants in various tragic events.

Gift to the Hermitage

The exhibition "Steve McCurry ..." (Hermitage) was a significant event for the whole of Russia. After its completion, all the work of the artist was donated to the museum (department of contemporary art), where they will become even more valuable material that reflects the real emotions, condition and feelings of a person who has witnessed the events of his time.

Conclusion

In the Steve McCarry coin box, millions of various photographs, a huge number of which can be attributed to genius, and hundreds, of course, serve as an ornament to many magnificent halls of world-famous art museums. Now Russia, in which Steve McCurry (the Hermitage) presented his works, began to possess a remarkable collection, received as a gift from this brilliant artist.

His works give viewers the opportunity to be transferred to those unattainable and original, fascinating and beautiful places in which he visited. You can look at his pictures endlessly, forgetting about time and about the space that divides the viewer and that place. The author surprisingly manages with incredible skill to remove the distance and the border between people located on both sides of the picture.

Everyone, looking at the photos of McCarry, listening to his interview, is once again convinced of his sincere and respectful attitude to absolutely all people with whom he had to and have to communicate and come into contact with work and life.