In Memoriam

I had just returned from Tibet the night before. I had not unpacked my luggage or camera bag. Shortly after nine o’clock when I heard of the attack, I went up on the roof of my apartment building and watched
both towers billowing smoke.

I photographed the second tower collapsing at 10:28 AM. After shooting from the top of my building, I walked down to Ground Zero at noon, and stayed until late that night when all my film was gone,  but I couldn’t bring myself to leave.

Later,  as I walked back home,  I was struck at how life slowly seemed to come back to near normal the further you walked away from Ground Zero.  It was strange listening to conversations of people who seemed to be unaware of the magnitude of this incredible event. I wanted to go up and shake people and say, “Don’t you realize that this is probably the most important day in your life?’”

This is a photograph on the morning of September 12th, of search-and-rescue teams.

View of the lobby of Two World Financial Centre

I was amazed by the vast amount of office paper and dust all over lower Manhattan.

A Third of Our Lives

 Calcutta, India

 

 

Tonle Sap, Cambodia

 

Recently, I have been reviewing the pictures in my archive for a new book project.    I have been looking for activities that are shared by people in every culture and tradition.

My blog on reading generated over 25,000 views, and it has been great to read many comments from people who are passionate about reading and literature, and the impact that they have on our lives.  I  discovered that I have a very large collection of people who are in some form of sleep.  It may be a nap or a snooze, a siesta or a deep slumber, but it is something we all need, but something many of us don’t get enough of.

Angkor, Cambodia

 

 

We sleep as much as a third of our lives, so it is clear that we are actually doing some important “work” during that time.  From consolidating memory and learning,  to repair of our bodies, sleep isn’t so much a luxury as a necessity.

Chiang Mai, Thailand

 

For Shakespeare, sleep was the balm of hurt minds.  He wrote in Macbeth:

Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care
The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast.

 

 

Bombay, India

 

 

Beijing, China

 

 

Paris, France

 

 

Outside Jalalabad, Afghanistan

 

 

Bangkok, Thailand

 

 

Now, blessings light on him that first invented sleep!   It covers a man all over, thoughts and all, like a cloak; it is meat for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, heat for the cold, and cold for the hot.  It is the current coin that purchases all the pleasures of the world cheap, and the balance that sets the king and the shepherd, the fool and the wise man, even. 

~Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, 1605

Fusion: The Synergy of Images and Words Part II

Rieti, Italy, 2006

We are familiar with words describing images, but not so familiar with images describing words and the impact reading has on our lives.

Los Angeles, California, USA, 1992

For as long as people have read books, artists have tried to portray the relationship of a reader and his/her book.

Kabul, Afghanistan, 2003

No matter where I go in the world, I see people immersed in books.  It doesn’t matter if they are rich or poor, young or old, they find comfort, information, distraction, and inspiration between the covers of their books.

Kandze, Tibet, 2002

Los Angeles, California

Sri Lanka, 1995

Kuwait City, Kuwait, 1991

Shwedagon Pagoda, Yangon, Burma,  2010

Tibet, 2001

Afghanistan, 1992

Afghanistan, 1984

Kunduz, Afghanistan, 2002

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.

– Jorge Luis Borges

Fusion: The Synergy of Images and Words

 

Ever since Gutenberg invented the printing press which enabled everyone to read books, artists have tried to portray the relationship of a reader and his/her book. 

 

 

 

Garrett Stewart’s book, The Look of Reading:  Book, Painting, Text, explores the relationship of reading and art.

 

 

 

We are familiar with words describing images, but not so familiar with images describing words and the impact reading has on our lives.

 

 

 

 

 

Artists from Rembrandt to Picasso have explored the interaction of people with their books. 

 

 

 Everywhere I go in the world, I see young and old, rich and poor, reading books.   Whether readers are engaged in the sacred or the secular, they are, for a time, transported to  another world. 

 

 

 

 Reading a good book is a universal activity, and people read while they do just about everything else.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Susan Sontag said,  ”The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people’s reality…”   The same can be said for reading books.

 

 

 

 When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.   — Erasmus

 

 

 

Pirating and Plagiarizing

The concept of intellectual property should be a no-brainer, but we see examples of theft all too often. 

Travel companies, government agencies, and even airlines use my pictures without permission.

 

Not too long ago, a photographer submitted some pictures to a German magazine that published a group of what the magazine thought were her photos.  Someone saw the pictures and realized that they were actually  my photographs. 

 I have taken out the name of the magazine because they have already apologized, but it is amazing that someone could think they could get away with submitting my pictures as their own.  I never received an apology from the photographer who stole the pictures.

 

 

 

On a building in Seoul, South Korea, 2009

  

The concept of intellectual property should be a no-brainer, but I guess there will always be people who use the work of others to promote their own companies or careers.  I appreciate the folks around the world who let me know when they see my work being pirated or plagiarized and let us know. 

Unpublished, Unseen 3

Shwedagon Pagoda, Yangon, Burma, 2010

Yangon, 2010

Tibet, 2005

Vietnam, 2007

Varanasi, India, 2010

Kumbh Mela Festival, India, 2010

Afghanistan, 2003

Afghanistan, 2002

France, 1989

Burma, 2010

So many of you have told me that you enjoy seeing the unpublished work, that I will try to put up previously unseen material more often. Thanks for looking at my blog.

Best,

Steve

Bombay, India, 1993

Riding the Indian Railways

Dusty and monumental, India’s trains often seem as ancient as India itself. - Paul Theroux

Ever since the British built the railroads in India that stitched that vast subcontinent together, the trains have connected all of its disparate parts.

When I was on assignment shooting a story on the Indian Railways,  I would go to the station every day and wander around the platform each time a train would roll in, carefully stepping over bodies and around huge mountains of luggage, and would start to photograph the swirl of life that assaults and saturates the senses.

Anything and everything takes place in a station; there is nothing that the depot hasn’t observed. The train station is a theater and everything imaginable happens on its stage. People endlessly wait, they camp out in the stations, and many call it home.

Travelers must share it with the occasional cow or even monkeys foraging for scraps, tolerate ever-present shouts from vendors trying frantically to attract business, and demonstrate patience with the endless queues.

When the train pulls into the station there is a mad dash of humanity as though it is the last train out of hell. People push through the doors and climb through the windows to capture an elusive seat in order to avoid the punishment of having to stand for an entire trip that could take six hours or more. Often the trains are so crowded, the aisles so packed with bodies pressed up against each other, that you cannot even lift an arm to scratch the back of your head.

One day I came across a solitary figure eating lunch — not an unusual sight in many places, but in the bazaar that is an Indian railway station, something that captured my attention. He had carved out a quiet refuge in that chaotic universe and seemed to be lost in a quiet contemplation that was the perfect foil for the rowdy universe that surrounded him.

“India is peculiarly visible from a railway train.  I have the idea that much of Indian life is lived within sight of the tracks or the station, and often next to the tracks, or inside the station.  It is not only part of Indian culture, but it is an ingredient in Indian life; it is dynamic, energetic, powerful.

It is impossible to imagine India without the railway, or to think what could conceivably replace it.”  Paul Theroux, The Imperial Way, Photographs by Steve McCurry

Tide of Destruction

The Two Gulfs

The largest oil spill in history until now, caused by the deliberate atrocity of the Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi army as they were retreating from Kuwait, covered 600 square miles of sea surface, and blackened 300 miles of coastline and decimated the once-abundant wildlife.

Saddam’s army deliberately spilled as much as six million barrels of crude as they blasted pipelines, and emptied loaded tankers into the Persian Gulf.  Everything that wasn’t spilled into the water was set on fire.

The Persian Gulf catastrophe would have even been worse if it were not for four brave Kuwaitis who tricked the Iraquis by making them think that a 48-inch pipe had already released all the oil from storage tanks.  Tom Canby (National Geographic, August 1991)

Hundreds of volunteers cleaned up  habitats and laid protective booms  across tidal channels. Even though at least 20,000 birds died, many were meticulously cleaned  treated,  and released.

Comparison of the estimated spillage of three major oil disasters:

Gulf of Mexico: 126-210 million gallons (2.8-4.8 Million Barrels) as of July 13, 2010
Persian Gulf:  84-250 million gallons (2-6 Million Barrels)
Exxon Valdez:  11 million gallons (260,000 to 750,000 Barrels)

Contrary to the reports that the spill had few long-term effects, there is ample evidence that there was long-term damage; some of the oil in the tidal flats is as much as a foot under the surface twenty years later.

To track the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico : http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/04/29/interactive.spill.tracker/index.html

G O A L – Football Fever

Sitwe, Burma, 1996

 

Whether you say futbol, futebol, voetbal, soccer, футбол, or calcio, you already know that football is the most popular sport on the planet.  This World Cup Tournament final match will be the most-watched event in television history.

Burma, 2010

 

More than simply kicking a ball around, football stirs passions, and crosses every boundary of nationality, race, class, generations, and religion.

Burma, 1984

Istanbul, Turkey, 1998

Yemen, 1999

 

Herat, Afghanistan, 2003

Football is played in every corner of the globe by every child who sees a moving ball and kicks it.

 

The Sahel, Africa, 1986

Morocco, 1998

 

Some people say football is a matter of life and death.  I assure you, it’s much more important than that.

-Bill Shankley

 

Bangladesh, 1983

Rationale, Rationalization, and Illogic

World Trade Center Collapse, September 11, 2001

Immediately after the atrocity at the World Trade Center on 9/11, we went into Afghanistan to find Osama Bin Laden, to root out Al Qaeda and  the Taliban which was protecting it, and to fight the “war on terror”.

Nine years later, we are not only still there, but by almost anyone’s calculation, we are losing.  The Taliban has been able to strike in the capital numerous times,  the general in charge of the troops has been relieved of his duty for intemperate comments about his superiors and the situation in general, and the signs of improvement are few and far between.

The rationale for the mission has lurched from one rationale to another,  and officials in Washington and in Kabul all try to explain what we are trying to accomplish.   We have been told it is to keep the streets safe in America.  It has been said that we are there to give breathing room to the Afghan government to build up their own forces.  We hear that we are there to help build Afghan institutions so that the country can have a civil society.  How does that square with the facts now?

According to the AP and ABC, CIA Director Leon Panetta said on Sunday there may be fewer than 50 al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan.   Panetta said, “I think the estimate on the number of Al Qaeda is actually relatively small. At most, we’re looking at 50 to 100, maybe less. It’s in that vicinity.”

President Barack Obama wants U.S. forces in Afghanistan to “disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda.” About U.S. 98,000 troops will be in Afghanistan by fall.

“It’s a curious thing about Afghanistan: every time a politician makes the case for why we need to stay, he or she ends up making the case for why we should leave.  And he thinks he’s making a case for staying! It’s truly bizarre how many in Washington are describing the situation in Afghanistan accurately, but then fail to draw the most obvious conclusion based on what they’ve just said.” (Ariana Huffington)

Panetta said less than a week ago: “Our purpose, our whole mission there, is to make sure that Al Qaeda never finds another safehaven from which to attack this country. That’s the fundamental goal of why the United States is there.”

If there are fewer than one hundred members of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and if eliminating Al Qaeda is truly the main objective, the costs are staggering in human lives and in scarce dollars that we can not afford.  The U.S. has paid more than 300 billion dollars and the costs keep skyrocketing.

General Petreus says that we will win this war, but what does winning mean?  Kandahar is still a Taliban stronghold nine years after the start of the war.  Unfortunately, there are too many questions and too few answers.

The “Q” word – quagmire – has been mentioned a lot recently.  How much time has to elapse before we know if we are in a quagmire?  If the definition is “a difficult, precarious, or entrapping position, a predicament”  we are already in one.

We all want Afghans to live in a peaceful society, and to be able to raise their families in security and safety.  We want Afghan children to get a proper education which will give them a future.  We want women to live without the fear which they suffered under during the Taliban years.

The problem is, that it is difficult to see how adding more troops will achieve that goal.  It seems to be doing the opposite since in the last nine years more boots on the ground have not produced security for Afghans.