"As a photographer, I am sustained by the rhythms of everyday life: the routines of herding and fishing; the chanting of prayers and the hawking of wares. Where do humans sleep? How do we feed ourselves? How do we keep warm? For me, documenting the infinitely varied ways we meet these fundamental human needs has proven to be a profound journey indeed.
The sequence of images that follows is not tied to specific events or cultures, but is instead suggestive of the vast tapestry of human experience and my chance encounters with silhouette and shadow, water and light, spire and sky. In this exhibition, I wanted to create for the audience [sic] a sense of beauty and wonder I'm confronted with during my travels when the shock of the strange rubs against the delight of the familiar.
These frictions - between past and present, the sacred and the profane, the domestic and the exotic - invigorate me. My impulse is to share them, to draw a circle of stillness around them so they can touch and inspire others.
[...]
In the end, I can't imagine another way of living. My life is shaped by the urgent need to wander and observe, and my camera is my passport. Here are the results of this restless curiosity - a selection of those precious, unguarded moments I was fortunate enough to witness."
- Steve McCurry
Introduction to the Unguarded Moment
A photographic exhibition at the Asian Civilisations Museum
It was good to find McCurry's portrait of Sharbat Gula, the 'Afghan Girl' (pictured above), in the exhibition. I remember that arresting gaze - those extraordinary eyes, so startlingly green - staring out at me from the cover of a back issue of a National Geographic magazine, which I used to read as a schoolboy. A haunting image that has the power still to mesmerise.
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