Photographer Steve McCurry on What It Takes to Nail the Perfect Portrait

In ‘How I Got This Shot,’ we talk to some of our favorite photographers about what it took to nail that perfect photograph—from the location and the equipment to the spur-of-the-moment decision required to get everything just right.

When National Geographic covers come to mind, you probably think of Steve McCurry’s Afghan Girl, the iconic 1984 portrait of Sharbat Gula, a young girl living in a refugee camp along the Afghan-Pakistani border. Even now, the photograph remains a de facto image for mainstream documentary photography—and at times, the ongoing debate over a photographer’s responsibility to tell (or step away from) other people’s stories.

But the Pulitzer-prize winning photographer has built up a mammoth body of work over the past four decades that stretches well beyond that singular image, taking him everywhere from Cuba to Italy to Antarctica. A new book, In Search of Elsewhere, now reveals 100 previously unseen photographs, with many of those images showing off his portraiture, a skill McCurry says he has learned a lot from throughout his career. “You can only really work with people who want to be photographed, and there could be a million great reasons why they just don’t want to participate,” he says. “You have to respect that.”

We spoke to McCurry, who has spent the majority of the pandemic sifting through his archives at his Philadelphia studio, about one of his favorite images from the book: a photograph of a young boy at the Litang Horse Festival in the Sichuan Province, in 2005. Here’s how he got the shot.

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So, how did you end up at the Litang Horse Festival in the first place?

I had a fascination with Tibet and Buddhism—I was working on a book [at the time] about it—so I made several trips to different regions. The most interesting area to me is in the east, where this town Litang is; people come from all over the region for its horse festival. It’s kind of like a country fair: they have races and costume contests, and it’s a time to trade and buy cattle. But it’s mostly a social gathering. A lot of these people are nomads, so it’s a time to get together and have some fun.

It sounds like a tight-knit community. How did you earn their trust as a photographer?

I think that there’s a chemistry that has to take place for people to trust you, and to want to allow you into their lives. You have to be on the same level. It sounds kind of obvious, but you have to treat people with dignity, respect, and also, a sense of humor—the latter helps strike up a [conversation]. That principle applies to anywhere in the world: If I was in the Bronx or Midtown Manhattan, or in Ethiopia or Russia, it would be the same. If you’re a likable person and people want to give you some of their time because they are interested or amused or want to learn about you, then [trust] will come from that place. Then you kind of just proceed from there.

How did you end up meeting the boy in the photograph?

There are thousands and thousands of people who attend this event every year, but some of them live, say, five or ten miles away. So you’ll drive down the road [to the festival] and pass so many inviting situations for taking a photograph. Maybe there’s a cluster of five tents together and you stop to meet that group and talk with them. Maybe there’s someone out with their animals, or the light suddenly gets a bit brighter. Or you see smoke coming out of the tent and it’s raining, so you figure it’s a good time to stop in. In the case of the boy, he was out there with his parents, possibly his grandparents and sisters, too, and [the image] came out of just photographing what people are doing all the time—cooking, taking care of the animals, and whatnot.

It’s a photography cliché—but probably for good reason—that children are notoriously hard to work with. What’s your trick when it comes to capturing portraits like this one?

It's like photographing your own child, or any children—you get what they give you. You can probably guarantee that a child will stand still for at least a 25th of the second, so if you get that, then that's great. But there's no formula, there's no secret. Even when photographing my own daughter! There's no amount of candy or promises that will solve your problems—and if you kind of force the issue, well, good luck with that. But there is a momentary point in the beginning when they're curious, and they're looking at you because you're new. That's your best opportunity.

Do you tend to know when you've taken a strong image in the moment, or is it after the fact, during the editing process?

It’s 90 percent when you’re there, looking through the viewfinder, recognizing that this is something special. You can, of course, wait to discover things in the editing or selection process when you're back home. Are there surprises? Absolutely. Are there things that you happened to catch and didn't realize it because you were moving too fast? Yes, that happens. But it’s really something that you have to see when you make that exposure—especially with portraits.

Finally, any advice for budding documentary photographers?

I think you do best when you work on things you have a passion for, or a love for. So if it’s landscapes, stick with it, the same if it's portraiture. Persistence is key. It’s a marathon, and it takes practice, a lot of practice. Life is also short, you need some sort of fulfillment or pleasure out of your work, so don’t just be doing what you think you’re supposed to do. That said, if you want to be a photographer, you need to look at pictures, other people’s pictures. Great pictures. Of course, then you’ve actually just got to go out and do it yourself, wherever you may be. There’s no shortcut for that.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.