Steve McCurry

Monday, August 9th, 2010

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery is hosting an exhibition by Steve McCurry called “Retrospective.”

I’ve been to a few photography exhibitions before, but this is by far the best. If a photographer’s art lies in capturing a  moment, then Steve McCurry succeeds, time after time, moment after moment. His Afghan Girl is apparently his most famous portrait, featuring a young refugee with startling green eyes, but there are many other great images at the exhibition. One, of a young boy in Honduras is truly shocking: tears stream down his face as he points a pistol at his own temple. I found myself hoping the pistol was a toy.

Many of the photographs reminded me of my own travels: the stilt fishermen of Sri Lanka (I wrote a short story about them, entitled A Fair Deal), the Buddhist monks of Burma, the Geishas of Japan and the temples of Cambodia. Others made me yearn to travel again. Thanks to Steve McCurry, I’m now desperate to visit the Philippines.

The exhibition made me think about the different disciplines of writing and photography, particularly the photograph of the stilt fishermen. If a photograph captures a moment, what does a story capture? A series of moments? Hopes and dreams? A way of life?

In, well, in retrospect, the notion of comparing the disciplines is invalid. Photographers like Steve McCurry strive for the truth behind the image. Fiction writers take the truth and cover it up, in the same way an oyster covers up a foreign substance with nacre. Writers want to end up with pearls that still retain the element of truth. Steve McCurry doesn’t have to hope or dream for pearls among his photographs. He’s created loads already, and all of them seem to retain the truth of their situations.

Tags: photography, travelling
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