The Eyes of War
By Skyler Prendergast and Jonaca Martin
Her piercing green eyes were just 12 years old when they first spoke to Steve McCurry.
They told how Sharbat Gula struggled out of the bombed-out village where her family died.
They described her two-week trek to a refugee camp on the Pakistani border.
Though she was never a spokeswoman, the struggles of her country now had a face.
Her eyes spoke, and the world listened.
Now one of the most iconic images on film, “The Afghan Girl” continues to be a testament to the heart and resilience of her people. Today, Steve McCurry’s photograph of refugee Sharbat Gula remains one of the most recognizable pictures in the world.
He’ll share his story-and hers-Tuesday night in the Vaughn Center.
In 1984, while covering the border conflict in Afghanistan, McCurry traveled to a local school looking for photos.
McCurry said he only had a short time to find something or someone worth taking a picture of. After searching, he set eyes on a beautiful young woman with piercing green eyes. After hearing the traumatic story of the border conflict that killed her family, he knew she was the one.
The photo of the young girl with “the eyes” appeared on the cover of National Geographic in 1985 and has been ingrained in reader’s minds ever since.
Years passed, and McCurry always wondered what happened to the green-eyed girl who fascinated him. McCurry did not learn her name until 2002, 17 years after he shot the iconic picture.
It was her eyes that mesmerized Western imaginations and communicated a peoples’ struggle from what seemed like worlds away. “Her look kind of summed up the horror because her village had been bombed and her relatives had been killed, and she’d had to make this two-week trek through the mountains to the refugee camp,” McCurry said. After learning that the refugee camp where McCurry last saw Sharbat was about to be destroyed, he decided to go back one last time.
“If I was ever going to find her again, this was the last opportunity,” McCurry told reporters.
When he got there, he showed the picture to local villagers but came up short and had many false leads. A woman with an uncanny resemblance insisted she was the famous girl in the photo, but she turned out to be a fake.
Eventually, a man came forward claiming that the girl in the picture was his neighbor more than a decade ago.
A few days later, the man returned to the village with the girl’s brother. “His eyes were the same color as hers and as soon as we saw his eyes, we thought, ‘This is amazing'” McCurry told reporters. “This is closer than we’ve ever been.”
The woman, now around 30-years-old, luckily agreed to meet with McCurry and his team to capture one more unforgettable photo.
“When she came out, it was clear that this was absolutely the same girl,” McCurry said.
“There was no question in my mind that this was the girl. The eyes were the same. She had the same distinctive scar on her nose. All the facial features matched up. I instantly knew that this was the girl,” he told National Public Radio.
McCurry found out that Sharbat Gula was by then married with three young girls of her own and living in a remote part of Afghanistan with her family.
The famous photographer still wants to keep in contact with the woman who made such an impression on him 22 years ago.
McCurry promised to help see Sharbat’s kids through school and help her follow her dream of eventually taking a trip to Mecca. The Afghan woman who instantly became a cultural icon represented not only survival, but the resilience and beauty which embodied the character of her people. “I don’t think she was particularly interested in her personal fame,” McCurry said. “But she was pleased when we said she had come to be a symbol of the dignity and resilience of her people.” Gula’s face has been the cover of National Geographic, on books, made into rugs, tattoos, re-printed on posters, and displayed on countless other items reiterating the impact of her image.
At the tender age of 12, her eyes were the mirror into a war torn country. Everyone knew who Sharbat Gula was. They attached themselves to the silent message in her eyes.
McCurry will now share his story of the Afghan, green-eyed girl with UT on Tuesday October 30. 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. The event will take place on the 9th Floor in Vaughn Center’s Crescent Room.
Have Camera, Will Travel
By Ianthia Smith, Jacqueline Curley and Sarah Mullally
Steve McCurry has been hailed as the man who braved the roughest terrains.
From canoeing in a Burma river to riding elephants in Afghanistan to trekking through the Mideast, Africa, and Central America, McCurry has probably seen it all.
Now his travels lead him to the University of Tampa.
The National Geographic photographer is extending his “Search for the Afghan Girl” to UT’s campus on Tuesday.
Due to his dangerous adventures in photo journalism, Steve McCurry has been reported dead twice in the news. Just as he survived countless risks abroad, McCurry did not let anything terminate his creative art.
Born in Philadelphia, McCurry graduated cum laude from Pennsylvania State University and went on to work at a newspaper for two years. Shortly after, he left to shoot freelance photography in India where he soon discovered his passion.
Just before the Russian invasion, McCurry disguised himself in native clothing and crossed the Pakistan border. It was there that he took the infamous picture of the “Afghan Girl,” which remains one of the best known pictures of National Geographic.
McCurry won several awards for his mystic photographs, including Magazine Photographer of the Year by the National Press Photography Association, Robert Capa Gold Medal for Best Photographic Reporting, along with winning the Olivier Rebbot Memorial Award twice.
Until the age of 19, Steve McCurry hadn’t traveled much. His love for travel started after he graduated from high school when he decided to live in Europe for a year. He then traveled to the Mideast, Africa, and Central America.
“I have a feeling that it could have been a need to travel and have this gypsy existence that led me into photography,” McCurry said on his website, Stevemccurry.com.
When he first goes to a new place, he seeks out the one photograph that captures the spirit of either the place or the people. Ideally, both.
“I think the best part is exploring new cultures and being in places you can’t ever imagine you’d be in, going down a river in Burma in a canoe or going into a teak forest with loggers on elephant-back or traveling around Afghanistan by camel. Seeing how we all live our lives a little bit differently is as important a way as there is to spend a part of your life,” said McCurry.
The photographer received a lot of attention and even awards for his bravery while traveling to the world’s conflict zones. He’s covered the Iran-Iraq war, Yugoslavia, Beirut, Cambodia, the Philippines, the Gulf War, and Afghanistan. His most recent travels have been to Tibet, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and Cambodia.
“I think it’s just a sense of adventure and discovery and exploration, exploring new places,” McCurry said. “To me it’s fascinating to learn about these differences in how we all are basically the same.”