The magazine of the photo-essay
July 2020 issue
“A free, really high quality photo-essay magazine. Fabulous!”
Stephen Fry. British actor, writer and film maker
Steve McCurry has returned to India some 80 times since his first visit in 1978. He
considers it a photographer’s paradise, with its wealth of colour, culture and extreme
contrasts, including those between India’s rich and poor. McCurry captures both the
‘Bombay elite’ and the ‘Mumbai slumdogs’. Photographs of Harshvadhan Singh, the
son of the Maharawal of Dungarpur, in the family palace, and of socialite
Chamundeshwari Boghilal are shown alongside images of women washing clothes
in the Yamuna River and of a Kashmiri shepherd sheltering in the trunk of a tree.
A photograph taken by McCurry in Bihar in 2000 of a Buddhist monk in a food stall
illustrates another of India’s paradoxical contradictions: rising consumerism in one of
the most spiritual countries on earth. The rich tapestry of India’s different faiths is
woven throughout McCurry’s photographs. India features images of Hindu devotees
immersing statues of Ganesh in the sea off Chowpatty Beach, of Sikhs praying at
the Golden Temple, and of the garden in Bodh Gaya, believed to be where Lord
Buddha achieved enlightenment.
Rajasthan
Bengal.
Mumbai.
Amritsar.
India by Steve McCurry is published by Phaidon, £29.95 (phaidon.com)
