Photographer Speaks Tonight on His Adventures

Photographer Steve McCurry could be called a war photographer since he has covered many international and civil conflicts. He cut his professional teeth by slipping into Afghanistan just before the Soviet invasion in 1979, bringing out some of the first images of the people and destruction to be shared worldwide.

However, McCurry has a wider, more humanitarian vision of his work, which he will share today with students and the public in a set of campus appearances that climax with an illustrated talk at 8 p.m. in Campbell Hall (x3535 for tickets). "Most of my images are grounded in people, and I try to convey what it is like to be that person, a person caught in a broader landscape that I guess you would call the human condition," said the native Philadelphian.

This observer of humanity does not stand apart from what he documents: He has nearly been drowned by a zealous crowd at a religious festival in India, survived an airplane crash at sea, and twice been erroneously reported killed.

His work, which has appeared in Life, Time, Newsweek, National Geographic, and other publications, has won him multiple awards and been bound into several books. "Sanctuary: The Temples of Angkor" is the latest of several that focus on Asia. The UCSB Bookstore will have a selection of his books for purchase and signing.

McCurry had just returned from Tibet to New York City, his home base, when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center's twin towers last year. He said he and an assistant worked hard to "translate into film what I was feeling--horror and loss."

He has come to UCSB on the "Live from…National Geographic" program, which is in only three other cities, and as a distinguished visiting fellow of the College of Creative Studies. Cosponsored by the Brooks Institute of Photography and Arts & Lectures, McCurry will spend Tuesday, Nov. 5, on the Brooks campus.

The "Live from...National Geographic" program features scientists and explorers as well as photographers who have published in the magazine. Other cosponsorships will bring anthropologist Wade Davis to UCSB next quarter and underwater photographer David Doubilet in the spring.