Foreword by Steve McCurry 6

Shooting Under Fire 8

India By Rail 28

Monsoon 48

The Afghan Girl 72

After the Storm 84

Gateway to India 102

In the Vale of Sorrow, Kashmir 138

Sanctuary: The Temples of Angkor 154

A Country Apart 172

September 11th 190

The Tibetans 214

Beyond the Footsteps of Buddha 232

Hazara: Strangers in the Homeland 256

Fighting HIV/AIDS 284

Chronology 302

Bibliography 310

Index 316

SteveMcCurryUntold_Blad_2012-02-01.indd 1 01/02/2012 17:58 Synopsis Dates & Locations Selected Publications In 1979, under deteriorating 1979 Afghanistan, Pakistan The New York Times, 3 December security conditions, Soviet troops 1980 Afghanistan, Pakistan 1979, p.2 entered Afghanistan to the aid 1982 Afghanistan The New York Times, 27 December of the Government, currently 1979, p.1 struggling to quell the US-backed The New York Times, 29 December mujahideen rebels. At the same 1979, pp.1, 6 time, Steve McCurry would enter The New York Times, 30 December Afghanistan under a similar veil, 1979, p.3 cloaked in local garments and Philadelphia Inquirer, 30 December smuggled under the border with 1979, p.7A his revolutionist guides. McCurry The New York Times, 31 December traveled with the Mujahideen 1979, p.A6, A11 intermittently over a number Expressen, 7 January 1980, p.8–9 of years, exposing the deeply International Herald Tribune, Steve McCurry 1980 in Afghanistan, personal strife behind a civil 9 January 1980, p.1 war backed by the world’s two The Christian Science Monitor, 22 major superpowers. His images January 1980, pp.12–13 would define the conflict and a Paris Match, January 1980, p.30 world-renowned photojournalist Stern, February 1980, p.19C was born. TIME, 28 April 1980, p.31 Modern Photojournalism, May 1980, p.13–22 Newsweek, Month 1982, p.21–9

In late May of 1979, as the rising temperatures signalled the impending arrival of summer, Steve McCurry was journeying north from Central India to the mountainous province of Khyber Shooting Pakhtunkhwa, situated at the western tip of the Himalayas in Pakistan. ’ He was into the second year of his travels around Southern Asia and over the previous months, he had been selling images to various small magazines, for a few hundred dollars a piece, as a means to sustain himself on his journey. When McCurry arrived Under Fire in Chitral, a small town at the base of the vast Tirich Mir Mountain, he immediately sought out Afghanistan, 1980 a cheap hotel. From this base he was able to set out to explore the surrounding area. This was to worried about the future of their country. I told be another adventure in McCurry’s journey from, them I was a photographer and they insisted in his own words, ‘being a news photographer that I come and photograph the civil war that in Philadelphia to becoming an established was raging. I had never photographed in an magazine photographer.’ area of conflict before and I wasn’t sure how Prior to arriving in Chitral, McCurry had I would react. When they came for me the next been reading about the developing situation in morning, I was having second thoughts, but I Afghanistan in a local newspaper and discovered wanted to honor my commitment so I went ahead. how thousands of refugees had been fleeing They dressed me in an old shalwar kameez and the growing civil war and setting up camps along sneaked me across the border. They referred to the Afghan-Pakistan border. A few days into themselves as the Mujahideen and were part his stay, McCurry met some such refugees at his of the uprising that was turning into a civil war.’ hotel and an uexpected opportunity presented McCurry trekked with the Mujahideen for itself. ‘They were from Nuristan’ he recalled, ‘and several days through one of the covert passages they explained how many of the villages in their between Pakistan and Afghanistan that traverse area had been destroyed by the Afghan army. the Hindu Kush Mountains. ‘There was a lot of These guys were really scared and nervous and fear just in leaving Pakistan in disguise and going into another country’, McCurry recalled. He soon discovered that he was, in his words ‘woefully unprepared’. ‘Among my belongings’, McCurry continues, ‘were a plastic cup, a Swiss Army knife, two camera bodies, four lenses, a bag of film and a few bags of airline peanuts. My naiveté was breathtaking, yet my Afghan guides protected me and treated me as their guest. That was my first experience with the legendary Afghan hospitality.’ What McCurry found when he arrived in Afghanistan was the beginning of one of the defining conflicts of the cold-war era. Ultimately, it was to become a proxy war, a conflict in which Father and son, Kunar, Afghanistan, 1979 Afghanistan, 1979

9

SteveMcCurryUntold_Blad_2012-02-01.indd 2-3 01/02/2012 18:03 Mujahideen fighters, Afghanistan, 1980

26 Shooting Under Fire 27

SteveMcCurryUntold_Blad_2012-02-01.indd 4-5 01/02/2012 18:05

Steve McCurry 1983 in India, photographing

from a talk by Lt General Hussain Muhammed of beauty and misfortune, from such scenes as a

Ershad held at a Monsoon Rainfall Prediction young girl looking desperately cold and dejected Prediction, on Monsoon Rainfall Workshop Training a for Programme June 1983 Bangladesh, Dhaka, workshop in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Through Veslind’s as she tries to shelter herself against the down- notes, McCurry discovered when the best time for pour (see p. xx), to a humorous image of a dog heavy rain in the Nepalese mountains is, and the waiting for a door to open while the waters areas suffering from the worst erosion because continue to rise around him (see p. xx). ‘For me,’ of the annual downpour were to be found in the McCurry continues, ‘the weather has mostly been countryside around Kathmandu valley. In the midst a congenial ally, creating mood and drama for of the chaos of the monsoon, such information photographs. But in the heart of the monsoon, was vital and it enabled McCurry to be in the right I was forced to immerse myself in weather so place at the right time as he spent several weeks profound that nothing else mattered – not art, not photographing in this particular region. culture, not intellect. It was a lesson in humility.’ McCurry also looked in the newspaper The monsoon would not sweep across the everyday to discover when the rains were pre- Indian subcontinent in a methodical and pre- dicted to come. ‘I’d discover’, notes McCurry, dictable wave. Rather, one area would suffer ‘that the Monsoon had arrived in a particular monumental levels of rainfall, while others would region. So, I’d end up jumping on a plane and be left untouched. During one period of calm going there. Or maybe I would be in a café having before the waters broke, McCurry documented lunch or dinner and it would start to rain and I’d the life of the fishermen of Goa, who base their drop everything and rush out and take pictures. working life around the cycle of the dry and wet You have to respond immediately to the situation monsoons (the cold dry monsoon coming in the because those heavy rains really don’t last for winter months, and the warm rainy season in the long. When it’s a really heavy downpour, these summer). As McCurry recalled, ‘I spent a few things only last for 5-10 minutes, so if it starts to weeks in the little fishing village of Sirgao, near rain you have to race outside and start shooting.’ the capital city of Panaji. The seas were already For McCurry, these downpours offered both getting rough with the storms raging in the Indian a practical challenge and a marvelous opportu- Ocean, but the real monsoon was nowhere in nity to capture something truly unique. In the first sight. For several nights I slept in a fisherman’s instance, he was faced with keeping his cameras house, awakening at 4am to sail with them into and lenses dry; not an easy proposition when the dark waters in their small, carved dugout you are wading through flood waters 4 feet deep canoes. I would sit on the bottom of the boat with or fighting a sudden deluge. ‘I carried a large my camera bag clutched between my knees, with gold umbrella when I shot in the rain’, McCurry two oarsmen kneeling fore and aft. We would explains, ‘I had my back turned to the wind, and move quickly through the bay for hour after hour, fifty per cent of my time was spent keeping the the oarsmen’s blades knifing tirelessly through camera lens dry. Sometimes in the downpour, I the water. The seas were muddy from earlier rains felt that my front lens was the only dry object in that had washed silt into the sea from the moun- a radius of fifty miles, an unnatural object in a tains to the north, and sometimes waves broke world meant to be wet! I was always soaked, but over the gunwhales. I was afraid we would be the lens survived. I learned to hold the umbrella swamped, but the fishermen would simply laugh. myself, balanced on my shoulder, almost invari- They had been fishing this way for generations ably, an assistant would squeeze himself under in the fragile craft even into the early days of the the umbrella, forcing my camera out.’ Yet, in monsoons. It would get much worse, they would

such moments, he was able to capture images say, and grin at me. They would fish until McCurry’’s from Pages 1983 Monsoon journal, 1983Notes on the monsoon,

56 Monsoon 57

SteveMcCurryUntold_Blad_2012-02-01.indd 6-7 01/02/2012 18:07 Dust storm, Rajasthan, India, 1983

67

SteveMcCurryUntold_Blad_2012-02-01.indd 8-9 01/02/2012 18:07 Chandni Chowk, Old Delhi, India, 1983

68 Monsoon 69

SteveMcCurryUntold_Blad_2012-02-01.indd 10-11 01/02/2012 18:11 Spreads from Access to Life (2009) featuring McCurry’s Spreads from Access to Life (2009) featuring McCurry’s photographs of Duong Van Tuyen photographs of Nguyên Quôc Khán

placed in the middle of a rice field. They are both she said, “You scream at the heavens in despair would translate to stories that were positive and aims of both informing the viewer of their work, as crying. Luan is holding on to her daughter as she – just go get the medications.”’ But stubbornly, life affirming. When it became clear that even well encouraging governments and private bene- puts some more incense sticks into the grave. in the early stages of the disease, he refused to with all the help of medication and health advice, factors to give money to the organization. The The grey sky, the dilapidated building (once a go. Becoming, according to Luong, ‘more hot- many of the sufferers were going to die, travelling results are works of deep sensitivity, that reveal church) in the distance, and the wet muddy field, tempered’, he argued that they were in debt and from his hotel to be with the families everyday how the efforts of local treatment centers offer all contribute to a scene of profound grief and could not afford more hospital fees. Only when became emotionally draining. The remaining a rare lifeline for sufferers in a country that often sorrow. McCurry followed the mother and daugh- the disease was advanced did he wholeheart- photographs from McCurry’s time with Tuyen ignores the problem. ter back to their home and photographed them edly enter into taking the medication. However, and Luong are testament to the pure grief and The final series of images McCurry produced walking together through the field full of fresh it was too late and he only survived for 17 days deep sorrow McCurry was faced with picturing. for the ‘Access to Life’ project were of Nguyên green shoots. Although we know Luan is also HIV after beginning the Antiretroviral drugs, dying in In one picture Luong is seen in the back of a car, Quôc Khánh. Khánh lived in a Hanoi apartment, positive, it’s a final picture that embodies some December of 2007. tears rolling down her cheeks. The picture was and had contracted HIV when working in one hope for the future, and reflects positively on The McCurry’s journey from discovering Tuyen taken on Luong’s journey back home after she of the illegal goldmines that pepper the central Global Fund’s work. was HIV positive, to him dying, reveal images of had just received news that she was HIV positive. provinces of Vietnam. He began working at the The second person McCurry photographed fear, pain and acceptance. Each of his images “Now I too am infected by the disease’, she said mine one year after he was married. Maybe it was was Duong Van Tuyen. Also living in the Thái chart a stage in this journey, utilising the quali- at the time. ‘I’m just 21 years old. It is possible being away from home, the isolation and bore- Nguyên province, he was married to Luong, a ties of light, tone, and colour to reveal something that my son is also infected [but he subsequently dom, but like many other miners he began to use young girl from the local village. The couple had of what McCurry himself was feeling when in the tested negative]. I thought a lot about that. I was opium. Once he was hooked on opium, the locals a two-year-old son, Toan, and lived in a small presence of people faced with the possible end very depressed. I wanted to die. For three days began selling heroin instead and Khánh, inevita- two-roomed house. Like Luoc, they ran a small of their life. In one of the earliest photographs, after getting my results, I thought a lot about bly, became a user and, shortly after, an addict. farmstead, given to them by Tuyen’s father as McCurry pictures Tuyen praying in the bedroom. everything. But I would still get up when I had to After leaving the mine, Khánh could not shake a wedding present. The labour was hard and We can see he has already begun to lose weight; prepare lunch or dinner for my son.” In another the habit and eventually went into a government- Tuyen had to supplement his income with other his coat seems far too big for his small frame. moment, taken after the death of his father, we sponsored rehabilitation unit in Phu Tho Province. work. Yet, beyond such difficulties, they consid- Later on, maybe on the same day, Tuyen is seen see the two-year-old Toan being consoled by Unfortunately, just when he needed to be getting ered themselves lucky to have the life they had. looking through the mosquito net that surrounds Luong. McCurry has captured them seemingly help, some of the inpatients had smuggled heroin However, all this changed when in June 2007, the bed. He appears pensive, unsure of what is isolated, cut adrift from the world around them. into the centre and they would often end up shar- Tuyen found himself in hospital after being going to happen next. Clearly, he is struggling After losing her husband, Luong told McCurry ing a needle. Khánh believed it was possibly at diagnosed as HIV positive. ‘Luong was a young with the thought that he has infected his wife that she feared she would lose everything. Such that moment that he contracted HIV. woman who had just married at 19,’ McCurry with HIV. ‘At first’, Tuyen noted during this time, thoughts haunted her on a daily basis. Now she Khánh’s stay at the rehab clinic took place in notes, ‘she had a small child and expected to live ‘I thought, “That’s it – now I will die from this.” was alone, and one of her greatest worries was 2001/2002 and, aside from a bad case of diar- a typical farmer’s life in the countryside. Out of After that, many people encouraged me to go get that Tuyen’s father would take away the farm rhoea, he displayed no obvious symptoms that the blue, she learned that her husband was dying medications to take. With health, I can still help and possibly even her son. Many of McCurry’s he was HIV-positive. It was not until 2007 that he from AIDS – and that she too had been infected my wife and son. I can still live with my wife and pictures reveal Luong walking alone along an became aware of having the virus. Throughout with the virus. Even though her husband had son and my parents. But if I die, I don’t know what empty track cradling her son, praying at her late that year he had been getting gradually weaker infected her, she stood by him; ‘I don’t know when my wife and child will do. How will they live? If husband’s grave, or hugging Toan in the early eve- and was spending more and more time in bed. he got his disease,’ Luong said. ‘Before getting they are infected, they won’t know how to get the ning. In the final picture from this series, Luong The family was suffering financially because of married, he seemed a good man and good tem- medications and take them. They’ll die just like is seen toiling the earth outside her house. The Khánh’s absence from work, and his wife Tiep pered. I don’t know anything about when he got me. So I try to live.” The subsequent pictures by fading light is only punctuated by the golden glow had to support the family, which also included two infected. If you talk about me placing blame, then McCurry reveal Tuyen’s expectations of prolong- from inside the house. Toan is asleep and Luong children, his 16-year-old son Thanh and 13-year- I don’t. I don’t place blame on anybody, because ing his life to have been unrealistic. In each frame is seizing the last few rays of light to do so much old daughter Binh. The family business was ‘a it’s this disease; it’s heartless and it’s easy to his spirit seems to ebb away, until in one image needed work. In the face of everything, the only breakfast stall in the market that was her family’s transmit.’ he just looks up towards McCurry’s camera barely answer is to carry on. In these images McCurry main source of income’ recalls McCurry. ‘But once Knowing free treatment was available was conscious of his presence. had to draw on all his thirty years of experience people learned that her husband, Khánh, had the one thing that gave her hope. Tuyen noted When McCurry visited Vietnam, he thought to translate the experience of sorrow and anguish AIDS, many of them stopped buying food from that when Luong ‘knew that I had the disease, that the work The Global Fund were carrying out into images that would serve The Global Fund’s her.’ Such myths and misunderstandings that

288 Fighting HIV/AIDS 289

SteveMcCurryUntold_Blad_2012-02-01.indd 12-13 01/02/2012 18:11 Interior, Phu Tho province, Vietnam, 2007

296 Fighting HIV/AIDS 297

SteveMcCurryUntold_Blad_2012-02-01.indd 14-15 01/02/2012 18:12 , vol.165, no. 6, June 1984 6, vol.165, no. , Caption TK Caption National Geographic

interesting. You never get bored. In India there is takes his pet goat to the market to sell. Yet, it is one such image we see a Bengali woman and her always this rich activity going on right in front of curious that in all McCurry’s pictures from inside son leaning out of the window. The relationship you, it’s amazing.’ the train, that there are few images shot through between the deep crimson colour of the car- The insidious divisions engendered by the window of the scenes outside, in fact it is usu- riage and the woman’s shawl, combined with her the social and economic inequalities that char- ally the reverse. intense gaze and the red Bindi on her forehead, acterise much of Indian society are reflected in As already observed, each time the train makes for a beautifully organic scene. McCurry the topography of the country’s trains. On the stopped, McCurry would step off the train for a uses the same technique to picture families using Caption TK Caption Caption TK Caption whole, McCurry was mostly drawn to the 2nd few minutes. He would photograph people get- the window to escape the crowded conditions of

Caption TK Caption and 3rd class carriages. One of the reasons for ting on and off, but more commonly he would turn the carriage, of passengers buying goods from this was his belief that the life of such people his camera back towards the train and use the traders in stations, or capturing farmers keeping was markedly different from those he would carriage windows as a natural framing device. In a close eye on the milk cans that are hung off the have discovered in his homeland. Alternatively, side. In one image that emerged from these nar- for McCurry, the trappings of wealth common row time frames, McCurry presents us with four to those higher echelons of Indian society often portraits (one could almost say ‘character stud- result in a visual homogeneity that is comparable ies’), within a single image, of travelers looking to similar economic groups across the world, out of their respective windows. Who knows what Howrah Station, Calcutta, India, 1983 and as such holds very little interest. (One could each of these individuals are feeling? Where they also argue that those more affluent passengers are going? Who will meet them at the end of their it wonderful to photograph, because you are able had a stronger say as to whether it was OK to journey? As the bikes hung on the side of the train to photograph these people’s lives as they do photograph them or not). In his journey from indicate, maybe for some the journey will continue their own thing. Also, people are working. Around Simla to Agra, McCurry would take a seat in the that little bit further. Finally, McCurry used this the stations you find a lot of small businessmen. overcrowded carriage that is commonly known technique to point-up the economic divides that For example, people are maybe just trying to as the “Peoples Express”. Such a title simply exist between the 1st class travelers and those make a chair, or maybe someone repairs shoes, or acknowledged the fact that 90% of the income unable to pay for any form of train travel. Jumping

Caption TK Caption they are a barber. In fact, many of the barbers who for the railway comes from the poorest passen- off the train at a station in Bangladesh, through operate in stations just have a chair and a dish gers. Inside the train, most customers are experts the window he pictures a white man in the car- with a little bit of water in it, very simple.’ We see at carving out the smallest space to make their riage, while above him on the roof is a rather one such individual at work in McCurry’s image of journey comfortable. McCurry’s picture of the Bombay, India, 1993 windswept man. In fact, McCurry even ventured a barber on the platform of Peshawar Cantonment interior of the Assam Mail train reveals people up onto the roof to take several portraits of these station. The customer has had the thick lather travelling squashed together on seats and sit- itinerant travelers. In one, we see several farmers of foam applied to his face, and sits in a relaxed ting in the luggage racks above. In many of the taking their hay to market. Positioned precariously Caption TK Caption pose. Maybe it is something to do with the fact images McCurry manages to capture his fellow atop the carriage, the danger of falling is ever that the man is displaying his gun prominently on passengers unawares, frequently lost in the rever- present. As McCurry himself recalled, “Once I was his hip that makes the barber appear tense, being ies affected by the repetitive clank and clatter of photographing and didn’t see some low electri- careful not to slip. It was instances such as this, train against track. Initally, to obtain such images cal lines. One hit me in the back of the head and images in which there is no distinction between is difficult. However, ‘if you’re in a train compart- knocked me down, but fortunately not off the car.” public and private, where people just live their ment six hours’ McCurry notes, ‘eventually people The physical division between the pas- lives in full view, which so attracted McCurry to will become bored. A lot of it is just having the sengers witnessed in the previous images is India and Pakistan. ‘You have this extreme range patience to wait it out, because there’s an initial simply an extension of the way the train is divided of class and caste and rich and poor’, McCurry period where people are curious and they crowd between the different classes. Unlike trains in the

Caption TK Caption has said, ‘and people tend to live their lives out around. Part of it is just being patient and wait- West, many of vestibules between 1st and 2nd on the street, whereas in the U.S. people tend ing until people decide to look somewhere else class carriages are locked. The outcome is that to do everything indoors. There’s just a fascina- or get bored with you.’ In one such image we see any food or beverages that have to be transported

Caption TK Caption tion. Sometimes it’s shocking, but it’s always a young boy, comforted by his grandfather, as he to customers in those sections have to be passed Bicycles on the side of a train, West Bengal, India, 1983

16 Shooting Under Fire 17 40 India by Rail 41

Train Station Platform, Old Delhi, India,  Caption TK

44 India by Rail 45 77 Desert Shield sticker, DesertShield sticker, ­ Arabia, Saudi ,  January ,  SteveMcCurry’s Kuwait Ministry Informationof CorrespondentPass The New York Times The York New

as he moved with the Brigade from Saudi Arabia turned south towards Kuwait, when the driver the sky was full of fi re and smoke.’ As the troops into Iraq. ‘As the sky brightened on the fi rst morn- of his jeep decided to switch columns and head withdrew they also mined the area surrounding ing of the invasion’, he continues, ‘I stared at my over to an adjacent line of military vehicles. the wells to make the job of putting out the fi res own column of tanks, trucks, and other support ‘Not a good idea’, McCurry observed. ‘We found even more treacherous. While Hussain’s orders vehicles stretching as far as I could see front and ourselves gingerly trying to maneuver through were aimed at creating maximum destruction and back, with identical lines on either side from hori- a bumper crop of unexploded “bomblets” from diffi culty for the incoming allied troops, the envi- zon to horizon. We made progress as fast as we allied cluster bombs. I stayed in the back seat of ronmental consequences were clear for all to see. could. Once in a while we stopped, and soldiers the jeep, fi guring if the front end blew up, I’d have Although it was nearly midday, McCurry observed dashed around carrying powder explosives. Then an extra two feet of space. I also sat on my fl ak that the ‘darkness caused by the burning oil wells with a roar our big guns launched a rain of fi re jacket for extra protection.’ During this moment, was like a moonless night. The exposure on my ahead of our advancing columns to demoralise McCurry felt like he had fi nally caught up with camera was about a quarter of a second on f‘.œ.’ the enemy. During four days of advance, the unit, the war. ‘Apache helicopters and Bradley Fighting He continues, ‘the photos I brought back show the attached to the Army’s VII corps, fi red an ear- Vehicles were just ahead fi ring into Iraqi bunkers black hellish landscape – yet they cannot convey numbing š,ŽŽ™ artillery rounds and —,‘œž rockets. and vehicles’ McCurry recalls, ‘we had a good the fi ne mist of oil particles that hung in the air, The invasion route took us north, deep into Iraq. vantage point for the raging battle – too good in nor the deafening roar of the wildly burning wells. Then we turned sharply southeast and headed fact. Our jeep mounted a berm near the border Nor can they show the unexploded bombs and toward Kuwait.’ Unknown, Kuwait,  and got stuck on top of it, with an entire column mines that dotted the Kuwaiti landscape. I’ll never McCurry spent four days with the brigade. lined up behind us. We tried manhandling it over. forget the chilling moment when I got out of the He split his time equally between document- Then another vehicle tried to pull us clear. But our car to stretch my legs under a jet-black Kuwaiti ing the efforts of the allied forces as they swept stubborn mule of a jeep wouldn’t budge. It fi nally oil cloud and caught a glimpse of an allied “lawn across the desert, and how the war was having a took a good strong shove from a truck to put us dart” mine behind the vehicle with our tire tracks signifi cant impact on Kuwait’s delicate eco sys- over the top.’ running right over it!’ When McCurry arrived in the tem. This dual approach was something McCurry Once deep into Kuwait, the Ž‘nd Field centre of the city it ‘was like a kind of end of the maintained throughout the project. On the one Artillery Brigade was ordered to stay put. So world scenario. It looked like a big movie set, a hand he would photograph and talk to people McCurry took it upon himself to head back to real sense of unreality. I just wasn’t used to seeing directly affected by Hussain’s forces, but he would Saudi Arabia, where he would then be able to a modern city in such a state of destruction.’ also train his camera on their surrounding envi- collect his jeep and drive back to Kuwait City. McCurry stayed in the city’s famous ronment. In many instances the two strands of the Hitchhiking with two army couriers, he undertook International Sheraton Hotel. However, while story would coincide, such as the documentation a fairly disconcerting nighttime drive through the it was once known for its luxury, when McCurry of people working to save endangered wildlife or desert, with no map or radio. As they crossed arrived the stench of rotting rubbish perme- those struggling clean up the destroyed oil fi elds. the darkened wasteland McCurry suddenly saw ated the air. Inside, McCurry quickly saw that the However, it was on his third day with the for himself how Hussein’s troops had ruthlessly army that he discovered his fi rst evidence of the executed their dictators instructions “to set the impact of the intense aerial bombardment and Dead Soldier, Gulf War, Kuwait,  whole region on fi re.” Hussein’s ‘Scorched Earth’ lightning attacks from the north that had pre- policy had resulted in the organized and effi - ceded them. Travelling along he found ‘corpses of the world, causing shock and outrage. McCurry’s cient detonation of over six hundred oil wells. Iraqi soldiers laying by burning hulks of armoured image of a burned Iraqi solider was one such Hammad Butti, an oil worker who remained in vehicles and abandoned positions.’ These fi gures work and was featured in the published article in the country during the invasion, described how were often calcifi ed in a deathly grimace by the National Geographic (‘After the Storm’, National the Iraqi troops went about destroying the mines. falling oil. Pictures of these gruesome scenes by Geographic, vol. —œ™, no. ‘, August —¤¤—). It was an ‘On Sunday, February —˜, they began to fi re the such photographers as Sebastiao Salgado, Abbas image that was part of his general wish to capture wells. They put dynamite in each, put a sandbag (who McCurry encountered and photographed on the after effects of war, both in terms of its human on each charge to direct the blast downward, and his sojourns into the desert) and Kenneth Jarecke impact and the wider environment. detonated it with an electric charge. Every —™ or appeared in magazines and newspapers around While still embedded in VII corp’s, McCurry —š minutes they fi red another well – boom! Soon Stranded jeep, Kuwait, 

Horse and tire tracks, Kuwait,  

94 Kuwait 95 104 Kuwait 105

Synopsis Dates & Locations Publications Te sedi sum fugit estrum ius 2001 New York, USA ‘Remains of the Day’,

et officil in re prectat videbit New York Times Magazine, aut experspe voluptatur sant 23 September, 2001 fugit latiis evenist ibusandist Magnum Photographers, New occaeribus am inctentiae restiur York September 11, New York: sum fugia quam in nihillitat eos Powerhouse Books, 2001 pernam dolorrovit, et aut que Agnimus modi corestem. Et nites et ea nonem fuga. Itat. intenih itaquam qui autendi Te Agnimus modi corestem. Et sedi sum fugit estrum ius intenih itaquam qui autendi Te Agnimus modi corestem. Et SteveMcCurry photographing studiohis building, of theon roof Park Square Washington New York, 5thand Avenue, September 2001 11 sedi sum fugit estrum ius et intenih itaquam qui autendi Te officil in re prectat videbit aut sedi sum fugit estrum ius experspe voluptatur sant fugit latiis evenist ibusandist occaeri- bus am inctentiae restiur sum fugia quam in nihillitat eos.

During August and early September of 2001, up the stairs to the roof of his apartment. ‘I have an Steve McCurry was in Tibet. Visiting various mon- unobstructed view of all of downtown Manhattan asteries in Lhasa, Labrang and Larung Gar, he from the top of my building, so I just ran upstairs was documenting the disciples on pilgrimages, and started shooting.’ Through McCurry’s first September 11th as well as traveling into the high grassy plains images, we can see his attempts to comprehend to picture the nomads tending their livestock. It what was happening. As with many of his other was a photo story close to his heart, a land of projects, McCurry captures a contextualising shot deep spiritual significance that he was constantly of the unfolding scene. This is an approach he has drawn back to. On the 8th September he trav- used in stories as diverse as Kuwait and Monsoon, eled from Tibet to Hong Kong and then back to where we see an overview of the scene (usually New York, arriving on a grey and overcast Monday shot from a plane) before then moving in closer. afternoon (10th. September). One of the reasons Here McCurry was acting on instinct, doing what McCurry had decided to journey back on this he has done throughout his long career; yet it was day was that he had a meeting at the Magnum also a way of coping with something McCurry agency with 11 of the organisation’s other mem- had never experienced in his life. In one of these bers. Amongst his fellow photographers attending early images we can see people gathered around this meeting at 151 West 25th Street, were such the Washington Square Arch looking south to the luminaries as Susan Meiselas, Larry Towell, Gilles World Trade Center. They appear as small dots Peress, Thomas Hoepker and Alex Webb. on the ground, ominously echoing those of the McCurry awoke on the morning of Tuesday firefighters and emergency crews that would then 11th September in his 5th Avenue apartment be surrounding and entering the stricken build- on the north side of Washington Square Park. ings. Throughout all of these opening images, He’d gone down to his office, which is in the the bright blue skies form an incongruous back- same building, to open up the backlog of mail drop to the two towers as black smoke drifts that had been accumulating over the past few eastwards across the harbour towards Brooklyn months while he was traveling. ‘You can actu- and beyond. McCurry continued to photograph ally see the World Trade Center from my office’ these scenes for 40 minutes, and then the McCurry recalls. ‘I was opening up my mail when unimaginable happened. my assistant’s mother called and said, “Look out At 9:59, just under an hour since the plane your window”.’ It was 9:10am; just seven minutes had struck it, the South Tower started to collapse. after United Airlines Flight 175 had crashed into Half an hour later, the North Tower imploded. From the South Tower of the World Trade Center in the roof of his apartment, McCurry continued to Lower Manhattan and 24 minutes after American photograph the appalling scenes unfolding before Airlines Flight 11 had crashed into the North Tower. him. He kept photographing because he believed The first impact, caused by a Boeing 747 fully it was important to record what was taking place. loaded with fuel that sliced right through floors ‘This is what I do’ McCurry notes, ‘I’m a documen- 93–99, destroyed access to most of the stairwells tary photographer and I thought this needs to be for anyone trapped above the impact zone. The documented, somebody needs to capture this so second plane, a Boeing 767, had crashed, at an we have some memory of this awful event.’ Maybe angle, between floors 77 and 85. McCurry saw the camera – containing the horror within a frame the smoke billowing from the towers but did not, – enabled McCurry to deal with the unspeakable at that time, know anything about the planes that devastation he was witnessing. ‘I was in a state of had hit the buildings. However, after receiving the disbelief when the towers fell’ continues McCurry. call, he instinctively grabbed his camera and ran ‘It was an indescribable, deep terrible sadness. Rescue workers search a mountain of wreckage after the collapse of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, New York, 11 September 2001 Bicycle and Buddha statue, Mandalay, Burma,

242 Beyond the Footsteps of Buddha 243 191

A selection of spreads from the book featuring the following stories, from top, left to right: ‘Shooting Under Fire’ (1979); ‘India by Rail’ (1983); ‘India by Rail’ (1983); ‘The Afghan Girl’ (1984); ‘After the Storm’ (1991); ‘After the Storm’ (1991); ‘Beyond the Footsteps of Buddha’ (1978–2008); ‘September 11th’ (2001)

SteveMcCurryUntold_Blad_2012-02-01.indd 16 01/02/2012 18:12