Steve McCurry and the Universality of Reading

Publishing Perspectives celebrates the photography of Steve McCurry who captures readers worldwide.

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One of his ongoing projects is compiling a collection of photos of people reading; on Monday, he put a selection of these photos on display for the first time on his own blog. Entitled “Fusion: The Synergy of Energy and Words” (Part I and Part II) drew a strong reaction from book lovers. “More than 4,000 people visited the site in the first few hours and I started getting calls from librarians and booksellers asking about the photos,” says Bonnie McCurry V’Soske, Steve’s sister, who manages her brother’s business.

The idea to shoot photos of people reading was itself prompted by his relationship with legendary Hungarian photographer André Kertész, who was also fascinated with images of people reading. “Henri Cartier-Bresson was a friend of mine and he once said, ‘Whatever we have done, Kertész did first and it’s apt to start here,” says McCurry. “I met Kertész in 1984 when I moved into the same building where he lived on Fifth Ave. in New York and I knew he’d done a body of work on people reading. It was an inspiration to me. Reading is kind of the universal endeavor, one without regard to nationality, race, age or culture.”

McCurry’s photos cross these cultural and socioeconomic boundaries. His personal favorite of his collection is a photo of a young Thai man reading a book while nestled up to the back of an elephant, shot earlier this year. Among the two dozen images posted online is photo of a group of Chinese men perusing newspapers through a shop window, another of an Afghan shopkeeper reading in his modest stall, and one Italian monks in contemplation with their Bibles.