Short Story Club


  1. Dreams Do Come True
  2. Endless Game
  3. Ready To Die
  4. The Risk


In My View


  1. Living A Value Based Life
  2. Self-Care In A Crisis
  3. Baby Girl Expectations
  4. My Feminist Journey
  5. The Experiential Diary


Fragments


  1. The Importance Of Basquiat
  2. Get To Know Steve McCurry
  3. The Passage That Changed Me
  4. Let’s Talk 1984
  5. Literature So Black
  6. Dave The Storyteller
  7. 10vs10 A Lockdown Tale of Enjoyment
  8. Views
  9. An Ode To Insecure
  10. Michaela Coel Is The Goal
  11. The Elite Desperate Housewives
  12. Ugly Betty: Was It Really Love?
  13. 90s Black Cinema


Poet’s Corner


  1. Breakdown
  2. Delusions Of Grandeur
  3. Helen Of Troy
  4. Crush
  5. Truest Self
  6. What Do I Want?
  7. Rise
  8. Best In The Multiverse
  9. A Complex Affair with Misery
  10. I Did The Love Game Wrong

Get To Know Steve McCurry



Click here for PDF with Images

“A picture says a thousand words.”


That’s the quote you often hear associated with art/photography. And it’s true! Pictures have the ability to say so much with saying anything and it got me to realise that photographers often tell hundreds and thousands of stories.

A particular photography whose work I was enlightened to last year during the first lockdown was Steve McCurry. In a conversation where I was admiring the art of an acquaintance, his name was mentioned and I had to admit that I wasn’t aware of the man – if you know me, you know that I don’t like to admit that I don’t know things/people, especially if they’re interesting and cool. Anyway, I ended up doing some google searches and quickly became fond of the works presented before me.

This is when I had the ‘brilliant’ idea of presenting one of my favourite collections from the man and detailing what it means to me. All this is unprovoked and there’s no copyright infringement intended (so please don’t sue me Steve).

The collection I’ve chosen is The Power of Play because the language of play is universal and how we display it varies, but it’s a joyful entity to look at always. My close second is the Eloquence of the Eye collection because the portraits are stunning.



Back to The Power of Play


1) Havana, Cuba

To kick the collection off, we have the random street sign used as a guitar. The use of any given object that takes a certain shape as a guitar is something I’m sure we’ve all done when we’re messing around, so this image brings me joy for that reasoning. But additionally, as someone who spent some time in Cuba, it’s something I definitely saw first-hand strolling through the various parks of Havana and seeing the kids play.


2) Rajasthan, India

What strikes me most about this image is the composition of colour, which isn’t exactly play related, however, the gathering of people in masse is another reason I’m drawn to this image. There’s a wonderment presented by the audience witnessing this man do an amazing skill. My particular favourite reaction is the little boy with his arms on his head, with an expression that conveys confusion and intrigue at the same time.


3) Mumbai, India

Joy is for everyone. Typically, as adults when we’re pictured, we tend to appear more reserved, stern, and serious, but here we have a group of men caught up in an activity and they are exclaiming their happiness in that moment, smiley expressions, and raucous laughter. The photo composition as well is brilliant as we’re drawn into the laughing man who’s contrasting the other men with his blue outfit, I’m no expert on photography despite the various Skillshare courses I’ve browsed through, but I can appreciate when techniques of contrasting are used.


4) Italy

5) Darjeeling, India

6) Nova Scotia, Canada

As a lover of sports and group activities, I enjoy seeing the ways people play and interacting when doing them. There’s something about the makeshift ideas we get when we want to play a sport together and the fun we have from improvising. Whether it be makeshift goalposts, homemade wickets or a temporary home plate, McCurry displays how our love for play thrives off our imagination, to capture that on a lens is truly a skill that only the best have.


7) Mauritania

I’ll be honest, this image just looks sick. The idea I get behind this is that any ground can be your playground. Even in the most deprived of places, children are still able to facilitate play with their surroundings. It really solidifies the idea that play is part of the human condition and McCurry captures this with an awesome action shot.

8) Bangladesh

9) Bamiyan, Afghanistan

10) La Fortuna, Honduras

The idea of play being fashioned by anything around you is a continuous theme in this collection and here are two more great examples. The images that McCurry captures show the essence of children and how happy they can be in almost given environment. They’re good images that can teach us a lot, but also, they are visually engaging.





Final Thoughts


There are plenty more images in the collection, I won’t go through them all as I want you to go discover the rest for yourself. There are plenty of powerful images within this series and all are captivating in their own ways. They are thought provoking, relatable and unimaginable, so go see about them.

I don’t know much about how he goes around the world and captures these images. Personally, I don’t imagine he tells each person to model in an exact manner for him to capture the moment, but if he does, fair play for being able to direct some of those shots. Before I drift too far from the point I’m trying to make, I get a feeling that he captures the world as it is, in its most authentic manner, presenting communities we on the western side rarely get to see and showing that we are all united by many things, and for this particular collection, it’s play. I know that seeing these images sparked joy in me and seeing them encourages me to go out there and just have fun.

If you like what you’ve seen, then check out more of his works here.