|
www.zaman.com Many of us may not recall the name of photographer Steve McCurry but, probably have seen the photo of the "Afghan Girl," whose deep green eyes reflected the tragedy of the Afghan people under Russian occupation.
Nowadays, the man, who discovered the impressive eyes, is in Istanbul. McCurry, who took the famous photograph of the Afghan girl, Serbet Gule, in a refugee camp in Pakistan in 1984 and published it on the front page of the National Geographic, opened a photograph exhibition at Topkapi Palace Darphane-i Amire building in Istanbul. The exhibition titled "Pilgrimage" is composed of 50 photographs taken by McCurry in India, Nepal, Cambodia, Afghanistan, and Burma. All photographs by McCurry have religious motifs. Temples, mosques, rituals, ceremonies… It has become an addiction for McCurry, a master photographer, to take photos of special places that people connect with and contribute their daily lives. These snapshots from Third World countries tell the spiritual journeys of people, who build their lives upon faith and modesty. “I am in search for a moment, when all private walls that human beings build around themselves are broken,” he says. McCurry photographs people during their prayers, going to prayer or preparing for it because he thinks they shift to a different dimension and integrate with nature at these moments.
McCurry spent his entire life on quest and in observation, photographing individual stories. Spending almost eight months each year in travel to different countries, the photographer turns his lenses to all faces of life. Traveling to several countries, McCurry loves India the most. There are many things in India, where Muslims, Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists co-exist, that I cannot have the chance to see in my own country, the US, he notes. People have religions and more importantly they live their religion; I don't know whether this is an escape from a mechanic life or a desire for discovery, he continued. As for what he searches for, McCurry seeks for mystery in untouched countries of the East, different lives embraced by a fascinating nature, different faces of different cultures, languages and religions. What he finds though is mostly patience. “I photograph life as it flows on, it is absolutely no artificial construct; I have learned from the East that one can reach the perfect only through patience,” he says. “If you really wait enough, people forget that you have a camera and their genuine "self" surfaces,” he adds.
McCurry's story begins in India in 1979. The artist had worked in several regions that faced international conflicts and civil wars. He had witnessed the Iran-Iraq War, disintegration of former Yugoslavia, the Gulf War and worked in Beirut, Cambodia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan. Yet, he does not call himself a war photographer. Rather, he prefers to focus on the effects war has on people. He presents to the human eye the effects of war not on land but on people. This is also another face of life; war is another fact of life besides beautiful things, he says. This, according to him, is a balance in life.
McCurry had overcome many dangers in these travels from wars and countries. He was arrested and enchained in Pakistan and his plane had crashed in Slovenia. He had been reported as dead two times. But, he is still committed to photography.
McCurry's exhibition can be seen at the Topkapi Palace Darphane-i Amire building until October 16.
Her only wish was to go to pilgrimage and she went
The Afghan Girl's photograph, the "photograph of the century", which made her a worldwide icon, has long been the topic of rumors about who she was. The story of a pair of deep green eyes had become familiar to the entire world and identified with her country, although the young girl herself was unaware of all this. McCurry had finally found her, Serbet Gule in Tora Bora region after long searches in Afghanistan. He had photographed her in 1984. When Serbet, unaware of everything, saw her own photograph on the National Geographic's front page, she became excited and surprised. Civil wars, starvation and scarcity had changed the expression on her face a little more, but her keen eyes and meaningful sights were still there. The National Geographic, which presented the Afghan Girl on its front page again in the April 2002 edition, asked her what her biggest dream was. She said her biggest dream was to make "pilgrimage". And the magazine sent her together with seven people from her family to pilgrimage, making her dream come true. |
