Women, #16 (“Dreams in a Box” from my On Women series). Mendoza, Argentina, 2016
You may think you don’t know this renowned photographer, but I am betting you do. Remember that famous National Geographic cover of the Afghan girl with the stunning eyes? Well, that was his image.
McCurry is quite famous for these kinds of portraits, as well as his landscape, travel, and documentary photography, often published in Nat’l Geo, books, and other top magazines.
He is quite admired for his work–but the admiration apparently is not unanimous.
Enter a recent article published in the New York Times Magazine (“A Too Perfect Picture”, March 30, 2016), by noted author, photographer, and critic, Teju Cole. He takes McCurry to task for what might be called formulaic eye candy, possibly even posed or set up, that only serves to perpetuate foreign stereotypes (this last phrase, my summary of Cole’s point). Cole even goes so far as to call McCurry’s pictures “boring”.
Wow!
It certainly caused a stir among the photography intellectuals who debate this stuff, including a strong rebuttal from Allen Murabayashi on the PhotoShelter site (“In Defense of Steve McCurry”, April 4, 2016).
Let the fireworks on the photography and art forums begin! Time to get the popcorn popping and pull up the recliner…
Actually, among my photographer friends, we often have similar debates and discussions: Why is it that the cliché sunrises and sunsets get mountains of “Likes” among the Facebook masses while an image (as mine above, for example) we might consider much more profound, layered with meaning, subtle, and so on, gets nothing more than the sound of chirping crickets? Why do most viewers gravitate toward the picture-perfect postcard, shying away from work that is more challenging to understand?
Of course, the debate is endless. It depends on your definition of art…your taste in art…the venue where you are viewing the work…what you see as it’s purpose…what makes you feel good…your level of engagement with art and artistic discourse…and myriad other factors.
Me? Well, like many photographers, I would love to have McCurry’s talent, renown, and income! (Although, naturally, my pictures would look nothing like his.) What he does is beautiful and even spectacular and sublime. On the other hand, I also get the notion that these images can also sometimes be seen as idealized, “too perfect”, cultural postcards. So, I am not yet sure where I come down on this debate–somewhere in the middle, I suppose. It is certainly something to ponder.
Check out the links above to the two opposing articles and see what you think.
Postscript: The controversy escalates…There now seems to be a lot of doubt about how Steve McCurry’s images were created, how much staging was involved, how much Photo-shopping occurred after the shot, and so on. This is seen as an important ethical discussion as many if not most of McCurry’s images were published (many in National Geographic) as documentary or photo-journalistic photographs. Obviously, if he were simply a self-declared photographic artist creating creative images, this would be a non-issue–but photojournalism is a different beast with different rules and expectations.
To read an interesting article that shows you some very specific examples of his photo-manipulation as well as a discussion of the issue, see this link: EDITORIAL: Eyes of the Afghan Girl–A Critical Take on the “Steve McCurry Scandal”, by Kshitij Nagar (June 6, 2016).
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