Steve McCurry in 2024. Photo by Christopher Michael / Wikipedia
Famous photographer Steve McCurry — who shot Afghan Girl — got prickly with a reporter this week after he was pressed on his 2016 Photoshop scandal.
McCurry walked out of the interview that was being conducted by El País , considered to be a newspaper of record in Spain. It started badly when the writer, Manuel Morales, asked McCurry why his photos “portray people who are suffering,” in photographs that are “aesthetic.” McCurry called it a trick question.
“I object to the manipulation of suggesting that somehow I’m trying to beautify human suffering,” McCurry replied. “It’s totally legitimate for an artist or a photographer to document the world as it is, and whatever the human emotion is — joy, happiness, suffering, sadness.”
But things got much worse when Morales brought up the infamous 2016 Photoshop scandal. “This is old news, man. I’m not going to get into that,” McCurry said as he got up to leave.
According to the full transcript of the awkward exchange published by El Pais, McCurry then called the reporter a “lazy man” and accused him of “trying to trip me into some bulls***.”
“Honestly, I think you should put the whole interview into the trash can and just leave it like that,” McCurry says. Morales writes that McCurry “does have a reputation” for being difficult in interviews.
Steve McCurry Photoshop Scandal
Back in 2016, PetaPixel reported that the Magnum photographer’s questionable use of Photoshop came to light after photographer Paolo Viglione went to McCurry’s show in Italy and noticed editing mistakes on one of the prints.
That led to a wider examination of McCurry’s work which found more examples of Photoshop misuse, including liberal use of the cloning tool to remove objects and even people from some of his documentary shots.
McCurry defended himself, telling PetaPixel that he defines his work as “visual storytelling” and distancing himself from the photojournalist label. But he later said that he will “rein in his use of Photoshop.”
Despite the drama, McCurry will forever be known as the photographer who shot Afghan Girl, the most famous Nat Geo cover of all time. The portrait of Sharbat Gula, an Afghan refugee in Pakistan during the Soviet–Afghan War, led to an early 2000s search for her and was eventually tracked down in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar Province.