Sitting hunched over Steve McCurry’s India it is difficult to repress the desire to rip out the pages and place each large photograph on the floor. One wants to create a considerable distance between these images, to walk in between them and gaze down into the eyes staring straight out at the viewer, to absorb the vivid colors seeping out from every page.
But it’s not just the direct portraits or the deep palette that create this desire; the photographs that have been brought so close to each other in this collection represent almost 30 years of work. While they are all shot in India, they are not part of one narrative, one era or one atmosphere. And so we must look at each alone.
This may seem strange to those unfamiliar with Steve McCurry, whose photographs have an iconic status in the history of photography.
Through the 80s and 90s, McCurry was one of the photographers who defined the way the world looked at, remembered and imagined the subcontinent in images. In the decades where magazines and newspapers had an unprecedented influence over the popular imagination — before television and the internet monopolised visual culture — his photographs appeared on the cover of magazines like National Geographic again and again.
The most indelible of these is the Afghan Girl which appeared in 1984. It has made McCurry a living behemoth. For Indians, the portrait of the young boy covered in red gulaal, which appeared on the cover of Nat Geo when the country celebrated 50 years of Independence, was also a memorable picture. To have an image steeped in the public consciousness is a coveted moment that comes rarely in the lifetime of any photographer.
And so it with this knowledge, of his prestigious place, that we turn to the images in this new book published by Phaidon/Roli. What are the three things that appear here most often?
Romanticism. Whether it is the colors of holi, the red turbans amidst the blue walls of Jodhpur, camels and elephants, the Mughal architecture of Delhi and Agra, or the Victoria Memorial in Calcutta, most photographs highlight what is recognisably “Indian” in the Western gaze.
A great degree of silence. McCurry manages to find the row of men sleeping peacefully on the platform, the soldiers in Gulmarg that are like specks of dust in the snow, or the girls working quietly at the charkha in the Sabarmati ashram, to make India seem quiet and resolute.
A structured beauty. There is a classic use of design that brings the eye straight to the center of the photograph. Whether it is the taut muscles of the rickshaw puller or the women throwing up their hands in a laughter club, we move out into the image from its core.
Ultimately, it is a portfolio that feels familiar because of how much it has been emulated by photographers and amateurs over the years. McCurry will be discussing all this and more in Mumbai tomorrow in a two hour conversation with Girish Shahane that is open to the public. The Hindu interviewed him before his visit, to learn more about the book, his methods and experiences.
Indian Border Security Force's Camel Corps patrol the Thar Desert, Thar Desert, Rajasthan, 1996 - © Steve McCurry
Why did you decide to re-print so many of your older images in this book?
In my life I may only do one “India” book. So I wanted to put the best work in the book. And there are probably a lot of people in the world that aren’t familiar with my work in India.
Your influence on Indian photographers has been immense. Many photographers, now in their 40s and 50s, will say that the only books they had access to was Steve McCurry and Raghu Rai.
I honestly haven’t noticed or seen that. In my career, in my photography, I was heavily influenced by the work of Henri Cartier Bresson and Walker Evans. I think we all learn from each other. I think we all borrow from each other.
Have you ever thought of focusing on one place in India?
I’d like to do a book on Calcutta eventually. I have to find the time to go back and do that. That’s something I’d like to do in the near future.
Bicycles hang on the side of a train, West Bengal, 1983 - © Steve McCurry
Is the image of the train a tribute to Robert Frank’s Americans in some way?
That’s an interesting comparison. But the Robert Frank picture actually goes much deeper because it has whites and blacks, and it’s more of a critique of race relations in the US. But there was actually nothing in my mind when I took the picture, I was just reacting to what was in front of me, a more intuitive approach.
In another interview, you talked about this old woman you met in Vrindavan. You spoke of her resilience, her joy, the pleasure she took in being alive. And yet you’ve chosen an image of her bent over walking on the street. It is her infirmity that we see. Why did you choose to keep that image?
I think you go with the best picture. There is a back story which is interesting. But I think that the design of the picture with the bullock cart with a hump in the background that echoes her back and then the wheel — maybe it’s a bit of a stretch — but it reminds me of the national flag of India… It wasn’t about trying to do a photojournalistic look at her — this is her walking, this is her home, this is her portrait — I just wanted to go with one picture which I thought was the strongest.
Given how many countries you’ve photographed where you’re an outsider, have you ever been accused of putting Indians, Sri Lankans, Burmese into one book and painting them with the same brush?
I think they’re all human. I think they all have a story to tell. They’re places and people where I’ve spent a significant part of my life. These people may look different but if they’re a rural farmer, it doesn’t mean they’re poor, it just means they’re more traditional. I’ve spent a lot of my life in South Asia so I think it’s natural to want to put those pictures together.
I don’t make any apologies for it. Because these are people I’ve gotten to know and photographed and was charmed by.
India is often represented the same way in many of the major international magazines. Have you ever had to fight with an editor to introduce some kind of newness or nuance in your stories, for your perspective?
When you work for a magazine or a newspaper it’s not about your vision. The magazine has their own point of view and only so much space and they want to do pictures one way. I really haven’t had much of an issue. We all want more pages, we would prefer to have a portfolio of our best pictures run over two pages but that’s just not the reality. The editors have their own set of requirements.
How well do you feel you need to know a place before you fly in?
I think the only reason to know a place is if you want your time to be effective, to identify places that are potentially the most interesting. I do research to figure out where I want to go and when I want to go there but I don’t like to research too much because it spoils the discovery. I’d rather just find out bits on my own as I see them, as I walk down the street.
Do you always use a fixer?
Yes. The fixer can be a guide, be a translator, be an assistant.
Often there are places where foreign photographers get a certain level of access or intimacy because of the fixer they’re working with, even though they rarely get the credit they deserve.
You’re absolutely right. Fixers, assistants, drivers all need more credit and recognition. I would wholeheartedly agree with that. I try and do that. There was a driver I worked with in Bombay, we worked together for years. He was so good that I took him to Yemen to work with me on a story there. I think he understood and I took every opportunity to express my appreciation.
What has been the most difficult day in your career so far?
I think the day I was almost killed in Yugoslavia. I ended up in the hospital.
What year was this? What happened?
It was 1989. The pilot, for some unexplained reason, went too close to the surface of the water. He got so close that we eventually hit the water. It was quite bizarre. I think he was trying to show off. I had some shoulder straps on.
(McCurry switches naturally into another bizarre memory)
I was at breakfast in a youth hostel in Delhi a long time ago. Suddenly everybody rushed out of the building. It turned out that Sanjay Gandhi crashed his plane in the back yard of the hostel. I don’t know what was going on, it was 7 or 8 o’clock in the morning.
On Oprah, you said that 9/11 was the worst thing you had ever seen. Given that you have seen so much devastation in war zones elsewhere, why was this more acute for you?
As I was watching I realised that there were people trapped in that building. I knew that as those buildings collapsed people were dying by the hundreds. It was 3,000 people killed. And to be able to see that was beyond description. I’ve seen individual people in the battlefield or in refugee camps but to know that people in offices, policemen, firemen, other journalists, other photographers by the hundreds and thousands… that was a much different level of shock.
Alisha Sett is a Mumbai based writer
Steve McCurry will be in conversation with Girish Shahane, at 6pm on Monday 25 January, at Essar House. The event is open to all. See avidlearning.in for details
