Steve McCurry- Buddhist

One of my main influences with this project is Steve McCurry who is a world famous photojournalist.He has traveled around the world mainly to Asia to photograph the worlds conflicts and cultures.

fig 1

fig 2

Steve McCurry enjoys photographing Asian countries as he finds the different cultures in the different countries that make up Asia. What interest me the most about Steve McCurry's work is his passion for the Buddhist culture in every country he has visited he has photographed the Buddhist temples that are located their. He doesn't just photograph the monks and the temples but he photographs the history in the form of the fallen Buddha statues and monuments. If you look at figure 1  you can see that the Buddha has fallen but since it is clean it has been taken care of over the years but if you look at figure 2 it is completely different. In the destruction of the giant statues of Buddha committed by Afghanistan’s Taliban government in 2001, McCurry has seen and photographed such desecration. But, for him, this has proved the superiority of Buddhism.

Fig 3

In figure 3 you can see the Buddhist children are enjoying themselves with games. What interest me the most about this photograph is that the child on the left has a toy gun with a smile on his face, I find this interesting because Buddhist are mainly about peace and kindness to others. So the child playing with a gun is quite odd. The use of colour as usual when it comes to Steve McCurrys work makes the photos stand out more since the content of the photograph seems to be aiding the use of colour. The children who are wearing bright orange robes are the main focus against the dull blue wall and brown ground it just draws your attention to what the children are doing.

"With the Buddhists that I've encountered, there’s compassion, there’s a respect for all life, and there’s lots of peace and serenity. There’s a non-judgmental quality. If you look at all these statues and images of Buddha around the World he has this very loving, very compassionate atmosphere. There’s this real sense of wisdom and acceptance. There is this love that exudes that I think people find comforting. Also in most Buddhist cultures, women have a place of respect and very equal status."

A quite from a interview with Steve McCurry By C.B.Liddell

http://www.culturekiosque.com/art/interview/Steve_McCurry.html

Steve McCurry is a huge influence to me and my work as I find his photographs of other culture to be something that I hope to do in the future. His work will influence my final major project as from looking at some of his Buddhist photographs I have more ideas of what to look for when photographing the temple.