Customer Reviews

Steve McCurry: Looking East: Portraits by Steve McCurry

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This is a large format book of suberb portraits from all over Asia by a master of the medium. No other book of recent memory reveals in such gorgeous detail the extraordinary people we share this planet with. Buy it and place it prominently on your coffee table for others to glory and wonder in.

I think this is the best collection and the best printing quality of McCurry's portraits to-date. These images are truly fascinating. I enjoy in particular those from Tibet.

Peering into the eyes to these amazing creatures moves me to tears.

Deeply human and touching. This book melts the heart and softens the sensibilities.

This is a magnificent book full of stunning portraits.

McCurry has captured the soul of his subjects using simple yet finely tuned techniques of a master photographer.

Opening this large book to page 48 we see the Kuchi Shepherd from Kashmir, his orange beard jumps from the page while his sage blue eyes reflect the years.

The Afghan Girl is here too. Her blue green eyes tinged with ochre match her clothes and background so perfectly she appears to own on the page.

Of course I'm romanticising about these images. Most of these people endure hardships most Westerners can't imagine. McCurry went back to look for the girl many years later (a National Geographic documentary). He found her still poor and unknown. Her eyes were still luminous though, her humanity shining through.

This is what photography is all about - no fancy tricks or gimmicks, just letting the subject speak for themselves, to live on the page and in our memories.

Page after page you are struck by the extraordinary portraits. Steve McCurry is really one of the greatest.

This is a marvelous collection portraits. The humanity that has been captured in them are very touching to say the least. I am still in awe whenever I look at these pages.

Excellent collection, great color reproduction. see the images in person if you get the chance.

Goya? Titian? Rembrandt? Gilbert Stuart? Hans Holbein? Who's your favorite portraitist? In sheer mastery of textures, light and shadows, contrasts of skin and clothing, color saturation, and all the nuances of portraiture, Steve McCurry stands up to that level of comparison. I have some creds as a photographer myself, but I'm in awe of this guy's technical mastery.

Music lovers, you may already have a few small prints of McCurry's portraits, since they are the mysterious faces that stare or smaile at you from the covers of John Eliot Gardiner's Bach Cantata Year series. Some of those covers are included in this large format treasure. If you buy it for your 'coffee table.' be prepared to keep it there for a very long time; you won't tire of it. Or, if you prefer, the portraits are large enough and well enough printed to be framed. The earlier reviewer who called this book a collection of mug shots would probably also call Ansel Adams's Yosemite photos a pile of rocks.

El libro tiene una gran calidad de impresión y el color es muy bueno.

Es de gran formato y es un verdadero placer hojearlo una y otra vez.

Lo volvería a comprar.

Yo soy fotógrafo profesional y las fotos de este libro son muy buenas pero lo mejor es la selección de los personajes y su profunda mirada que parecen atravesar el papel.

"Looking East: Portraits by Steve McCurry" is a true gift of humanity, to humanity. It is a collection of 57 hypnotic photographic portraits, each one exquisite in color and texture, each subject meeting the viewer eye-to-eye.

The head-shoulders format of the photographs keeps the viewer riveted to the faces, triggering, I believe, a deeper recognition that somehow the human species is all interconnected, we are all one, and that what we do to one, we do to all.

My plan for this book is to surround my social studies classroom with these powerful images, in the hopes that my students will better learn to see outside themselves, and will come to celebrate both our commonalities and our diversities.

Steve McCurry: Looking East: Portraits by Steve McCurry