In Search Of Elsewhere With Photographer Steve McCurry

There’s a good chance that you’ve seen Steve McCurry’s photographs many times over the last 40 years or so. Quite a few of them have appeared on the cover of National Geographic, most famously that of a young Afghan girl with piercing green eyes. While his work has been published in countless travel magazines and online sites, he is far more than a travel photographer. McCurry, whose work has a strong and almost instantly recognizable look, is closer to an anthropologist and poetic documentarian, capturing not only the foreign locales but letting us glimpse the souls of the subjects he photographs. He has served as a war photographer in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq as well as an astute observer of ancient cultures on the brink of change. Recognized with the Robert Capa Gold Medal, among many other honors, and recently inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame, he is publishing In Search of Elsewhere: Unseen Images on November 24, 2020. I caught up with McCurry on the eve of the book’s release.

Everett Potter: Steve, I have been a fan of your work since The Imperial Way, the landmark book you did with Paul Theroux on the railways of India back in 1981. It is still on my shelves. In the nearly 40 years since that work was published, how much more challenging is it for you as a photographer to discover the truly undiscovered?

Steve McCurry: My goal was never to discover the undiscovered. My goal was always to document the human condition where and when I found it. 

I was fortunate to be able to photograph places and situations that no longer exist. For example, the fields behind the Taj Mahal used to be used for agriculture. That land is now covered with roads and buildings. Of course, when I was shooting interesting people and places, I didn't think that the landscape would totally change, and that I had captured the essence of a place before it disappeared forever.

It would have been impossible to predict when and how things would be transformed into something previously unrecognizable, but those pictures are invaluable records of the way things were.

Potter: In Search of Elsewhere seems to be an apt description of your body of work. But why have these particular images remained unseen? 

McCurry: We started a major scanning project about five years ago. Tens of thousands of images that had never been seen are now in our digital archive and available. For some shoots, I will return and make my first selection. I was able to go back through previous shoots and discover images that I glanced over before. It has been very gratifying to see the work from bygone eras and from places that are either inaccessible or that have been affected by climate change, war, innovation, and other disruptions. They provide primary source material on the way things were. Through the passage of time, images often take on a different meaning and importance. With the patina of time, you sometimes see things differently. 

Potter: The human element is a central feature of your work and it’s the rare image – I think I saw one in this book — that is pure landscape. Was this a conscious decision early on when you started out as a photographer or did it evolve over time?

McCurry: Most of my images are grounded in people. I look for that unguarded moment and try to convey some part of what it is like to be that person, or in a broader sense, to relate their life to the human experience as a whole. We humans connect to one another via eye contact — there is a real power in that shared moment of attention, when you catch a glimpse of what it must be like to be in their shoes. I think this is one of the most powerful things about photography, to relate that sensation.

I think we’re all fascinated with each other; we all have the same face but yet we’re all different. That difference is fascinating because so often there’s an incredible story told on our faces.

Potter: These images go so far beyond what is normally thought of as a travel photograph that they seem to inhabit another universe. How long does it take you to get a feel for people and a location once you’ve arrived in a new place?

McCurry: The best way to approach a person is to treat them with respect, smile, and make them comfortable around you. If you win their confidence and their trust, people will open up and allow you to photograph them. I find that once you explain what you are doing and you can bring them in your process, people are very willing to cooperate and let you take their picture. 

Potter: So many of the images in In Search of Elsewhere: Unseen Images have the look of spontaneity. How hard is that to achieve?

McCurry: It takes a lot of time, patience, observation, and persistence to successfully capture these spontaneous moments.

Potter: You have an amazing knack for capturing the everyday moment, but it’s the everyday moment in a culture that is often very foreign to Western eyes. At a time when there are Instagrammers frantically trying to capture the world with their phone cameras, is this increasingly difficult for you to do?

McCurry: Now that virtually any photographer can self-publish his or her work on the internet, it's much easier to get your work out there for everyone to see and enjoy. However, magazines are cutting back and some of them are disappearing which is very sad to see. Ultimately, change is inevitable and you have to look at it as a huge opportunity to be able to share your images with the entire world. 

Potter: What was the most challenging photo shoot you ever did?

McCurry: I would say that shooting under fire, specifically in Iraq and Afghanistan, was very challenging and dangerous, but a photographer has to take calculated risks in wartime situations in order to document the truth of what is happening at a given time.

Potter: If you could set off in the morning on an assignment, what are some of the places you’d be very happy to visit and photograph again?

McCurry: Tibet, Antarctica, or Ireland. 

Potter: What is next for you – are there places you have yet to visit?

McCurry: I would love to travel to Iran, Central Asia, and the Russian Far East.

In Search of Elsewhere: Unseen Images by Steve McCurry. And visit Steve McCurry’s website for more on his work.