Steve Mccurry: Afghan Girl

In Otto Dix’s “Shock Troops Advance Under Gas”, Dix presents the brutality of war for everyone to see. From the barbed wire snagging a troop’s arm to the gas masks, this work illustrates true horror. Dix’s illustration of war helps display that war truly is not something to write home about with pride. Thus, I present the argument that war is not something to be patriotic over, and it is not something we should be thanking the troops for. They are brave individuals, but the duties they perform are not – they are the product of cowardly nations. The purpose of this paper is to convey my personal feelings towards this work, war and how it is not the answer, and tying in my visit to the McNay Art Museum back to aspects of war.

Jusef Komunyakaa’s poem “You and I Are Disappearing” is about an experience in which the author was helplessly looking at a village girl getting devoured by flames that were caused by a firebomb called napalm. Within the context of the gruesome of war, the author puts down in words the vivid images of both the civilian and the soldier during the Vietnam War. While the village girl was engulfed by the flames, causing her physical pain, the soldier was also powerless in watching her burn. Years after the war, the speaker recalls how he still sees “a girl burning in his head” (Komunyakaa 2). A truth claim that can be drawn from this poem is that both the civilians and the soldiers are victims of war. I

In a daring, catastrophic short story “Chickamauga,” Ambrose Bierce uses juxtapositional imagery to show how the fantasies of war deviate from the jarring realities of its horrors. As the boy is wandering through the woods, he sees men crawling with their faces “streaked and gouted with red.” Their faces make him think of “a painted clown” and he begins to laugh. The image of a man’s face “gouted with red” paints a gory, brutal image in the minds of readers while the image of “a painted clown” creates a joyful, humorous image. A child seeing a clown rather than dying, brutalized man baffles readers and shows that the child has no idea how devastating and damaging war can be.

Firstly,look carefully at the photo because Afghan Girl's eyes tell a lot of things.Her name is Sharbat Gula.The first time I saw this photo, I saw hope in her eyes.When the photograph has taken,Sharbat was in the refugee camp because there was a war between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan in 1984.Sharbat Gula was a symbol of the Afghan war of the eighties and of the refugees spreading to the whole world with his sharp eyes and green eyes.You can see the hopes,loneliness and traces of the war in her eyes.For more than fifteen years,Gula's identity has remained unknown.This process lasted until the Taliban regime collapsed in 2001.During this time,Steve McCurry,who took the photo,made attempts to reach Gula.A National Geopraphic team went to

In an article published in 2002 trying to find this “Afghan Girl,” McCurry said her eyes are “haunted and haunting, and in them, you can read the tragedy of a land drained by war” (Newman). When you look into the eyes of this woman, it is true eyes are the window into our souls. Looking into Sharbat Gula’s milky white and emerald eyes, you can just see all the misery and pain this woman has gone through to get to freedom. McCurry uses light to emphasize the woman creating contrast with her hijab/Shayla headpiece. When looking very closely to her eyes, the innermost part of her iris is beige and morphs out into an emerald green with striking specks of golden-beige around the outer part of her

To conclude, the Afghan Girl wasn't an ordinary photo, its an iconic image of being a refugee. It showed the world, the reality of a refugee and it successfully aided Afghanistan refugee problem. Sharbat, may not know but she is a icon to Afghanistan and the world. It gave people the power to survive and motivated them to do something or face your problems and be strong. These photographs shows the world on how tragedy befalls on people who are living in war-ravaged regions. It shows us that life is not always easy and its okay, we must accept it and survive.

War has emptied the lives of humans. There are battles and deep wounds that seem unreal. But in reality, the war humans have caused is polluting and violating the human’s birthplace as well as the animals. Humanity is destroying the beauty of nature. Marc believed that a new age was approaching and that “all existence is flaming suffering” (Franz Marc

In 1984 a journalist called Steve McCurry took an iconic photo of a 12-year-old afghan girl in a refugee camp. That picture of a green-eyed girl became a famous cover of National Geographic. With that photo she became the symbol of the suffer of people in Afghanistan during the Civil War. That girl is called Sharbat Gula and now she's being the subject of news but for a very different reason.

Through Pennsylvania State University’s College of Arts and Architecture, he learned about influential photographers such as Dorothea Lange, a documentary and photojouranlist who took pictures of farmers during the Great Depression. Lange’s most recognizable photo, Migrant Mother, built empathy and support for people who were struggling during this time. After college, McCurry took pictures for the “Today’s Post” in Pensylvania, but not long after travaled to India as a freelance photographer. While in India, he took several pictures that were able to show the contrast between modern society and people still living in the past. His pictures aren’t all inspiring and show hope as well as Afghan Girl does, as some reveal the harsh reality that many attempt to ignore.

The visual weight or the focus of the photograph “The Afghan Girl” are on the sparkling green eyes of the young girl, Sharbat Gul. It is indeed the most domineering feature of this photograph and where the vision of many fall when they first look at the image, not only because of the rare color of the eyes, but because the whites of Gul’s eyes are the sharpest highlight compared to the deep dark reds and greens in the photograph; hence they capture the viewer’s attention.

In “A Life Revealed”, Cathy Newman discussed the connection of two different pictures that were published in the national geographic magazine. Steve Mccurry took a picture in 1985 that swept the nation. The picture was that of a teenage Afghan girl giving a stern look to the camera. He had captured the tragedy of war in Afghanistan and the beauty of resilience all in one. Readers of National Geographic at the time were taken aback by the picture, as it is so powerful. Multiple years later, Mccurry began a quest to find the girl in the picture. After an incredible amount of research and probing, Mccurry found her. He asked if he could capture her picture and she gave consent. She had only had her picture taken once before and that was when

War did not only obliterate the flesh of men; it destroyed the very essence of humanity within individuals. In the book All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque impeccably illustrated the destructive nature of war. Remarque demonstrated the obliteration that follows war through the physical disfigurement of the soldiers and battlefield, through the mental scarring of soldiers young and old, and through the annihilation of all emotional bonds from before and after the war.

Sharbot Gula’s cold gaze into the camera lens pierced the hearts and souls of those who discovered the photograph. Through her eyes one can see her despair and suffering and feel her pain of living in the war torn country of Afghanistan her whole life. Though her exact age remains in question because of the lack of documentation of her birth, it is confirmed she was young and most likely in her teen years. The same time in a flourishing country the look of joy and innocence would be present on a child’s face hers mirrors the opposite. The haunting image sheds light onto the topic most people choose to ignore or belittle, the people living in the countries at war. She is uneducated,

“He established his reputation with award-winning photographs taken while disguised in Afghan.” [Chamber Harrap] He won four different awards between the year’s 1984 – 1992 World press award: For General News 92, Daily Life 84-85, Nature 1985 – 1991, Photo Children’s Award 92.

This single close up, in combination with the prevailing medium shots, is highly effective in illustrating the directors overall purpose - to show the audience the harsh realities of war, displaying the shock of those involved to us as the viewers. We realise how bad the conditions were during this event, and how draining and painful it must have been for all involved. The audience feels sympathy for the men, for the hardships they faced, and for their clearly evident