Motivation Monday - Steve McCurry

Steve McCurry (born 1950) is another inspirational portrait photographer, and one I have posted about before. He is most famous for the below photo of the Afghan Girl taken in 1984, which was used by National Geographic on their June 1985 cover and was later named the most recognized photo in NG history. I saw this image in my high school library in grade 9 and my breath was taken away. I wanted so badly to be able to take a photograph like that. To this day, McCurry's images inspire me greatly to be better at what I love.
Steve McCurry is a master at creating a story with his photographs. Yes, they are well composed and taken with the best photographic technology available, and of course the man is truly amazing in his field, but it is something within the photo itself that makes you unable to take your eyes off of it. McCurry himself stated, “Some of the great pictures, you just look at them and you marvel at them, for the subject matter and somehow they struck a chord in you. But it’s rarely about the technique. It’s not about the lens, or the film, or the light necessarily. It’s really just some story in that picture. Some emotional element which you connect with.”McCurry has a blog over at wordpress that I think is worth a visit or two. He has some photos he has taken and tidbits of stories that occurred while taking them. It is pretty interesting to see what extremes he sometimes had to go to to capture that remarkable image.
He also offers workshops abroad in which you travel with him and take photos alongside him. He reviews your portfolio and I assume teaches along the way. I think it would be a once in a lifetime experience to go on one of these workshops, and who knows, maybe one day I will.