Photograph: Ulrich Perrey/AFP
From The Guardian website:
‘It’s Heartbreaking’: Steve McCurry on Afghan Girl, a Portrait of Past and Present
On 1 September, a young Afghan girl stood in line with her family at a US base in Sicily waiting to board a flight to Philadelphia. She is about nine years old and is one of more than 100,000 people evacuated from Kabul by allied forces after the Taliban took control of the country in August.
The U.S. photographer’s image of Sharbat Gula captured the story of a country, its people and refugees across the world. Thirty-six years on, another picture tells a similar tale – but also one of hope.
Her photo, taken for the Guardian by Italian photojournalist Alessio Mamo and featured on the front page of the UK print edition, resembles the Afghan Girl by American photographer Steve McCurry. McCurry’s portrait, of a Pashtun child, Sharbat Gula, which appeared on the June 1985 cover of National Geographic, became the symbol, not only of Afghanistan, but of displaced refugees across the world.
Steve McCurry appeared at the 2019 Festival. He has been an iconic voice in contemporary photography for over thirty years, with scores of magazine and book covers, over a dozen books, and countless exhibitions around the world. In 2004, McCurry founded ImagineAsia, a non-profit organization that helps provide education and opportunities to children and young adults in Afghanistan.
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