BOOK:Steve McCurry-The Unguarded Moment, Phaidon Publications

Steve McCurry has been one of the most iconic voices in contemporary photography for over three decades, documenting conflicts, vanishing cultures, ancient traditions and contemporary culture. His image of a young Afghan refugee with piercing eyes (the June 1985 National Geographic cover) has become one of the most distinctive in photographic history. “The Unguarded Moment” one of ten compendiums of work by Steve McCurry, is a vivid collection of portraits and scenes, reflecting the daily rituals and customs of people around the world, collected over the last thirty years. The collection includes a number of instantly recognisable shots from McCurry’s oeuvre, including a rare portrait of Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the famous Dust Storm picture depicting a group of traditionally-dressed Indian women and children shielding from the relentless winds of the Thar Desert. ‘I was in a beat-up taxi traveling through the desert to a town called Jaisalmer near the India-Pakistan border,’ says McCurry of the photograph, taken in 1983. ‘It was in June, and as hot as the planet ever gets. The rains had failed in that part of Rajasthan for thirteen years. I wanted to capture something of the mood of anticipation before the monsoon’.-Dimitris Lempesis