Steve McCurry, photographer from the United States. Photo © Steve McCurry, Havana, Cuba, 2010
1.Tell us what you do and your beginnings.
From the time I was a kid, I was never still, and I’ve never been one to wait for things to happen to me. I’ve heard it said that only amateurs wait for inspiration; professionals just get up every day and go to work. In other words, proper artists don’t hope that inspiration will come to them, they actively seek it out.
At first I just wanted to travel and photography was a way to allow me to do that. I’ve been interested in drawing and painting since I was 10 years old and became interested in photography when I was 19.
I studied cinematography in college and took a fine-art photography class and fell in love with it. That class in still photography changed the course of my life. Filmmaking is a collaborative enterprise, usually involving crews of people and demanding constant cooperation and compromise, but still photography is a solitary craft.
