Going Home

Home is where one starts from. 
- T.S. Eliot

Rajasthan, India

The ache for home lives in all of us…
- Maya Angelou

Omo Valley, Ethiopia

My home is my retreat and resting place …
I try to keep this corner as a haven against the tempest outside,
as I do another corner in my soul.
- Michel de Montaigne

Cave Homes in Bamiyan, Afghanistan

Tibet

He is the happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.
- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Bamiyan Province, Afghanistan 

The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown.
It may be frail — its roof may shake — the wind may blow through it — the storm may enter — the rain may enter —
but the King of England cannot enter! — all his forces dare not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement.
-William Pitt the Elder

India

All language is a longing for home.
- Jalaluddin Rumi, 13th-Century Persian poet

Russia

 Mali

Uganda

Peru

Mauritania

Home is any four walls that enclose the right person.
-Helen Rowland

 Tibet

A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.
- Benjamin Franklin

Kashmir

Tihamah Plain, Yemen

A man travels the world in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.
- George Edward Moore

Refugees returning to destroyed homes, Herat, Afghanistan

Russia

There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues,
the most dominating virtues of human society, are created, strengthened and maintained. 
- Winston Churchill

 Tanzania

Philippines

 Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.
- John Howard Payne

Afghanistan

Morocco

 My home is not a place; it is people.
- Lois McMaster Bujold

Bosnia

Brazil

Russia

Life’s a voyage that’s homeward bound.
- Herman Melville

Omo Valley, Ethiopia

It takes a lot of living to make a house a home
It doesn’t make any  difference how rich you get to be
How much your chairs and tables cost, how great your luxury;
It isn’t home to you though it be the palace of a king,
Until somehow your soul is wrapped round everything.
- Paraphrase of Edgar Guest poem, Home

Upcoming Exhibitions
Plazzo Ducale, Genova, Italy – Opens October 17, 2012

http://www.stevemccurrygenova.it/

Annenberg Space for Photography, Los Angeles, California, United States – November 15, 2012
 Kunstmuseum-Wolfsburg, Germany – January 19, 2013
Kunsthalle Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland – June 1, 2013

Proverbs and Poems from Afghanistan

 Jalalabad 

If literacy rates were measured by a nation’s proverbs and poetry, Afghanistan would be one of the most literate countries on earth.  These two forms of the oral tradition have been embraced for centuries and reveal the heart and soul of the Afghan people.

Bamiyan

Proverbs are part of every culture and have been for thousands of years.  Francis Bacon said that the wit, genius, and spirit of a nation are discovered in its proverbs.  Here are some common Afghan proverbs which provide unique insights into the ancient culture.

Maimana

There is a path to even the tallest mountain.

Hindu Kush Mountains 

The mountains are our people.

 The harsh land is integral to this nomadic herder culture with deep roots in high pastures. “Koh-o mar-domon moya,” a saying goes: “The mountains are our people.” Qala-e Sabzi.

A warm fire is better than a delicious meal.

Refugees return to their bombed out neighborhood in Herat

If there is only bread and onions, still have a happy face.

Kabul

In a ditch where water has flowed, it will flow again.

Irrigation channel, Kandahar 

Many drops make a river.

Between Sarobi and Kabul 

A real friend is one who takes the hand of his friend in times of distress and helplessness.

Kabul

Kandahar

Not even the five fingers of our hands are alike.

Textile Dyer, Kabul

There is blessing in action.

Bakery run by Afghan widows

Brick Workers, Bamiyan Province

First a friend then a brother.

Herat 

POETRY

In Afghanistan, the tradition of poetry writing and recitation dates back a thousand years.  To lend credibility to an argument, the preface,  ”The poet says…”   denies the listener the opportunity to disagree.  Although many do not read or write, they can recite long passages of both classic and modern poetry.

If leadership rests inside the lion’s jaw,

So be it. Go snatch it from his jaws.

Your lot shall be greatness, prestige, honor and glory.

If all fails, face death like a man.

Hanzala of Badghis – 9th century poet

Wounded Afghan fighter outside of Jalalabad

Kabul

Ah! How beautiful is Kabul encircled by her arid mountains
And Rose, of the trails of thorns she envies
Her gusts of powdered soil, slightly sting my eyes
But I love her,  for knowing and loving are born of this same dust

My song exhalts her dazzling tulips
And at the beauty of her trees, I blush
How sparkling the water flows from Pul-I-Mastaan!
May Allah protect such beauty from the evil eye of man!

Khizr chose the path to Kabul in order to reach Paradise
For her mountains brought him close to the delights of heaven
From the fort with sprawling walls, A Dragon of protection
Each stone is there more precious than the treasure of Shayagan

Every street of Kabul is enthralling to the eye
Through the bazaars, caravans of Egypt pass
One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs

And the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls …

 - Saib-e-Tabrizi, 17th century poet 

Kabul

 Nomads at prayer at sunrise

Earth

The earth opens her warm arms
to embrace me
The earth is my mother
She understands the sorrow
of my wandering

My wandering
is an old crow
that conquers
the very top of an aspen
a thousand times a day

Perhaps life is a crow
that each dawn
dips its blackened beak
in the holy well of the sun

Perhaps life is the grief-stricken earth
who has opened up her bloodied arms to me

And here I give thanks
on the brink of ‘victory’

-  Partaw Naderi

July, 2002 

Fusion: The Synergy of Images and Words Part III

Herat, Afghanistan

 

For hundreds of years artists have tried to portray the relationship of a reader and his/her book.  We are familiar with words describing images, but not so familiar with images describing words and the impact that reading has on our lives.

Chiang Mai, Thailand

 

Kham, Tibet

 

Shwedagon Pagoda, Burma

 

“Reading is a means of thinking with another person’s mind; it forces you to stretch your own.”  – Charles Scribner

Old Delhi, India

 

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.

Varanasi, India

 

Kham, Tibet

 

The world’s largest book fair will be held in Frankfurt starting on October 6. Publishers, booksellers, agents, film producers,  authors, and journalists from all over the world will attend.  It is a privilege that my series of reading pictures will be projected during the opening press conference and featured in the daily publication, Publishing Perspectives.

Saõ Paolo, Brazil

Angkor Thom, Angkor, Cambodia

 

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

Bamiyan, Afghanistan

 

Yangon, Burma

 

Tokyo, Japan

 

Shanghai, China

“We read to know we’re not alone.”   – C.S. Lewis

Yemen

 

In the Shadow of Mountains

A Portfolio of Images from Afghanistan

Classroom in Kunduz, Afghanistan, 2002

Allah is the mountain above the mountain, and it is He who entertains the idea — or not — of our next hour on the earth.

Girls High School, Bamiyan, 2006

This is why Afghans are reluctant to bet on tomorrow. Tomorrow is not ours to presume upon. Tomorrow is the pleasure of Allah alone.

Hazara women at grave in Bamiyan, 2007

Insha’Allah.  The pervasive, overpowering feeling that is difficult to describe about Afghanistan.

Bread Vendor, Kabul, 1992

It is the stubborn and unassailable conviction – the ability to endure almost anything – that defines the Afghan soul and my fascination with it.

Father and daughter at home with folk art on the wall, Kamdesh, Nuristan, Afghanistan, 1992

It is this powerful feeling that draws me there again and again.

Herat Ruins, 1992

Kabul, Afghanistan, 1992

Former soldier in facility for mentally ill patients, Kabul, 1992

The Afghanistan Dilemma  –
http://stevemccurry.wordpress.com/2009/10/04/393/

Preposterous Grandeur

In Christopher Kremmer’s  book, The Carpet Wars, he writes this about Afghanistan:

“A landscape might be denuded, a human settlement abandoned or lost, but always, just beaneath the ground lies history of preposterous grandeur. . . They are everywhere, these individuals of undaunted humankind, irrepressibly optimistic and proud.”

Herat, Afghanistan, 1992

The beautiful city of Herat has been inhabited for over two millennia and has been fought over by invaders from Alexander the Great to the Soviets which picked Herat as one of their first battlefields.

Bala Hisar Fort, Herat, Afghanistan, 2002

When I photographed there, it looked like Dresden after World War II.  But the war with the Soviet Union had ended by the late 1980′s, and families had started to return from Iran and other countries to rebuild their homes.

A young man returns to his hometown of Herat, 1991

School boy, Herat, 1991

Herat has always been considered to be a cultural center where the arts, literature, architecture, and knowledge flourish.   Herat is a treasure trove of ancient forts, citadels, mosques, and minarets.

October, 2009

It is a privilege to have an exhibition of my photographs going on now at the Charhar Suq Cistern in Herat.  The Aga Khan Foundation is rebuilding the huge caravanserai in Herat which has four big branches.  Right in the intersection is the place called the Charhar Suq cistern.

Herati women looking at my picture of an orphan from Kandahar, October, 2009

During the first week, more than 1,800 people visited the exhibit along with 800 local high school students  field trips organized by the Afghan ogranization, Education Support Organization.