Steve McCurry was born in 1950 in a big city in Pennsylvania. McCurry attended Penn State University. He originally planned to study cinematography and filmmaking, but instead gained a degree in theater arts and graduated in 1974. He became interested in photography when he started taking pictures for the Penn State newspaper The Daily Collegian. He worked in India for a year after calling it his favorite place freelance in 1978. His career was launched when, disguised in Afghani garb, he crossed the Pakistan border into rebel controlled areas of Afghanistan just before the Soviet invasion. He said, "As soon as I crossed the border, I came across about 40 houses and a few schools that were just bombed out. They were literally destroying whole villages with helicopter gunships." He then continued to take photos of the dark parts of wars. McCurry concentrates on the toll war takes on humans. He intends to show what war does to not only the landscape, but to the people who inhabit that land. “Most of my images are grounded in people. I look for the unguarded moment, the essential soul peeking out, experience etched on a person’s face. I try to convey what it is like to be that person, a person caught in a broader landscape, that you could call the human condition.”
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