Steve McCurry


Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, 1983.

Naples, Italy, 2021.

Steve McCurry captures very raw moments between humans of all different cultures and experiences. His style of photography seems to pierce through the subjects soul and displays their humanness in a clean and beautiful way. While I will never know what it is like to experience these people's lives, his work seems to let me have little glimpses into other peoples very different lives that I am thankful to be able to see. 

Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2012.

In the image above, the kid seems to be leading everyone else. I think there are different ways you could interpret this, but to me I think it can represent how we would benefit to an extent if we let the child in us all lead sometimes rather than always being so serious. 

Color seems to be a strong aspect of his photography, which initially catches the viewers eye. The photos are rich, seamless, and visually appealing while also capturing very raw and real moments of people's lives. While I didn't include many here, in a lot of his portraits of people, the subject is looking directly at the camera--at the viewer. This created a very personal experience with the person in the photograph. 

Lhasa, Tibet, 2000.

I know these are not supposed to be about the photographers background, but I found some very compelling facts about McCurry's history that inspire me. McCurry was born in Philadelphia, so relatively close to where I am from. It is cool hearing success stories about people from the same area as you because it's a realization that anyone can become successful and well known if they work hard enough. 

Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, 2002.

This image is interesting because the cat is looking at the camera just like how many of McCurry's other human subjects do. Having the obviously old hand holding the young cat so gently is beautiful. 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Annie Leibovitz (2)

Image
  Annie Leibovitz is a modern contemporary photographer who uses very stages scenes and organized environments to capture very visually interesting and narrative portraits. These portraits are very thought out and stages, but this creates images that almost feel like paintings. I like the wide angle lens that Annie Leibovitz commonly uses. This allows her to capture more of the surrounding scene to make the environment and integral part of the photo, that the subject in the photo just seems to be a part of the environment rather than sicking out as their own object and the environment adding to them.  The reason I chose these portraits specifically is to show how similar Leibovitz's formula is for capturing a "good" photograph. In all of these, there is a visually interesting environment with women wearing dramatic dresses and good lighting. It seems as if you have these elements, you can copy and paste the composition and a good photograph will result. In all of these ph...
Read more

Arnulf Rainer

Image
  Arnulf Rainer's artwork stood out to me because it is very unorthodox what he does to his self portraits. First, he takes photos of himself that are not the typical "flattering" way of taking a portrait. Then, to add to this, he adds drawings or paint onto of his photos, which almost distorts his identity and the way the viewer views him. These photos evoke a very strong uncomfortable reaction, but it is this ability to invoke such strong emotions that makes these photographs so moving. The distortion of the face is really intriguing to me, because it questions the subjects identity by their looks and may represent how the person feels when other people perceive them.  All of his photographs seem to be initially shot in black and white, maybe toned with sepia, but he then goes overtop of these photographs with colorful paints. He uses a lot of yellow and blue. These colors feel very gloomy and sad. This along with the abstraction of the photos gives a similar feeling to...
Read more

Alex Webb

Image
  Alex Webb creates photos that seem so perfect that they almost look photoshopped, but from what I can tell, they are just highly posed and thought out as to make such a perfect composition with interesting subjects and colors. The photos all depict multiple people places around the scene in a very balanced way.  The picture above specifically has a perfect shutter speed to freeze the people in the photo but is slow enough to show the motion of the spinning globe. This looks like a different part of the world than in the U.S., so I think seeing it as someone who has never experienced this lifestyle makes the image more impactful. Even though it is different than I am used to, we are all on the same globe.  The precise composition and colors jumping out of the images are Webb's signature moves. I feel like Alex Webb also photographs different types of communities and explores the interactions between people in these communities. He captures these people in what seems like...
Read more