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steve mccurry<br />
‘There are times when<br />
you recognise a design<br />
or a composition, and<br />
you work it; if you think<br />
it’s worth it, you’ll wait<br />
for as long as it takes’<br />
you just have to average it out.<br />
That’s why it’s important to me<br />
to be somewhere interesting, like<br />
Havana [in Cuba], or Rangoon<br />
[now Yangon in Myanmar], or<br />
India, so that if you do strike out<br />
and don’t get any good shots at least<br />
you’ve had an enjoyable walk.<br />
What types of subjects catch<br />
your eye? What makes you take<br />
the lens cap off?<br />
I’m interested primarily in people,<br />
and human behaviour – how people<br />
relate to each other and their<br />
environment. I’m rarely drawn to<br />
landscape photography. Landscape<br />
photography is a speciality. Rarely<br />
can you just drive down the road<br />
and see a great landscape photo;<br />
you have to plan. You need the<br />
right location, in the right light,<br />
and you need all these<br />
compositional elements.<br />
Some people only shoot candids<br />
or posed portraits, but you seem<br />
happy with both styles. What’s<br />
your philosophy on interacting<br />
with your subjects?<br />
For me the most fun is just to walk<br />
around unobserved and photograph<br />
life as it happens – meeting people<br />
and talking to them. It can be a<br />
little intimidating to stop someone<br />
in the street and ask if you can take<br />
their photograph. But then I see<br />
people with such interesting faces I<br />
just have to force myself to engage<br />
with them and try and convince<br />
them to let me take their picture.<br />
two buildings, or framed in a<br />
doorway. How much time will<br />
you put into waiting for that<br />
perfect moment?<br />
Most photographers have at some<br />
time recognised a composition,<br />
perhaps a poster or something on<br />
the wall, and waited for a person or<br />
animal or car to complete the<br />
Agra, 1983. Women<br />
wash their clothes<br />
in the Yamuna River<br />
Rajasthan, 2009.<br />
Man in an orange<br />
turban<br />
picture. There are times when you<br />
recognise a design or a composition,<br />
and you work it; if you think it’s<br />
worth it, you’ll wait for as long as it<br />
takes. I did that just a couple of<br />
nights ago in Venice. It was about<br />
1 am and there was this amazing<br />
fog, and I waited over an hour<br />
to get the shot.<br />
You have described yourself as a<br />
shy person. Do you find stopping<br />
people gets easier with practice?<br />
On every assignment I’ve ever done,<br />
I get to the place and after a few<br />
days, start to panic and worry that<br />
I’m not going to be able to do this<br />
and that the pictures just aren’t<br />
there. Then things start to happen<br />
and pictures start coming at me<br />
from all directions, and suddenly,<br />
everything is great.<br />
There are certain motifs that<br />
occur frequently in your images.<br />
One of them is the perfectly<br />
framed moment where someone<br />
is walking past a gap between<br />
22 14 May 2016 I www.amateurphotographer.co.uk I subscribe 0330 333 1113
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