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Rhapsody in Blue

Italy
Antarctica

Why make so much of fragmentary blue
In here and there a bird, or butterfly,
Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,
When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?

Since earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet)—
Though some savants make earth include the sky;
And blue so far above us comes so high,
It only gives our wish for blue a whet.

– Robert Frost

Tahiti
Fiji
Mongolia

I have found myself dwelling on the color blue and the way our planet’s elemental hue, the most symphonic of the colors, recurs throughout our literature as something larger than a mere chromatic phenomenon — a symbol, a state of being, a foothold to the most lyrical and transcendent heights of the imagination.

– Maria Popova

Togo
Japan
India

“Blue is light seen through a veil.”

– Henry David Thoreau

Burma
United States
Afghanistan

Blue is the typical heavenly color…
The ultimate feeling it creates is one of rest…”

– Wasily Kandinski

France
India
Cambodia

“I saw in a blue haze all the world poured
flat and pale between the mountains.”

– Annie Dillard

Uzbekistan
Morocco
Mali

“We love to contemplate blue,” Goethe wrote, “not because it advances to us, but because it draws us after it.”

Italy
Afghanistan

Blue is the unspoken language of universality,
seamlessly weaving through the expanse of
sky and the depths of water.

Philippines

“No water, no life. No blue, no green”

– Sylvia Earle

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E X H I B I T I O N S

STEVE McCURRY : THE ENDLESS TRAVELER

Peter Fetterman Gallery
Santa Monica, CA

Sat, Jan 27, 2024 –  Sat, Apr 27, 2024

___

ICONS

Seaworks Maritime Precinct
The Main Shed
Melbourne, Australia

Wed, Feb 28, 2024 – Sun, May 26, 2024

___________________________________

NEW BOOK
D E V O T I O N

Reproduced in stunning color, these photographs honor the universal desire to create meaning in the midst of everyday life and offer viewers an opportunity to connect with their own spirituality—whatever form that takes.

More about Devotion here –
https://www.stevemccurry.com/news/steve-mccurry-presents-devotion

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The Kingdom of Trees

Between heaven and earth, between mankind and the stars, lies the kingdom of trees; between that which gives us food, housing and work on the one hand and that which is incomprehensible
and unaccountable on the other.

Trees in the History of Civilization

Kashmir

Trees are Sentinels
Guarding, Nurturing, Protecting
Bastions of Dignity

Breathing life
Providing shelter
Asking for nothing
Sacrificing everything

-K. Earle

Tahiti
Namibia

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them,
can learn the truth.
They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach
undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

-Hermann Hesse, Wandering

Korea
United States

For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary
than a beautiful, strong tree.

-H. Hesse, ibid

Thailand

Trees, proud standing people
stretching fingertips to the sky, reaching, praying
glorious attention, breathing light.
strength shelter timeless confidence
bending and firm comforting …

-Wallace Stevens

Mali
Italy

Planting trees early in spring,
we make a place for birds to sing in time to come.
How do we know? They are singing here now.
There is no other guarantee that
singing will ever be.

-Wendell Berry

Madagascar
Japan

No wonder the hills and groves were
God’s first temples…

-John Muir

Sahel

I hear the wind among the trees
Playing the celestial symphonies;
I see the branches downward bent,
Like keys of some great instrument.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

India
New Zealand

A woodland in full color is awesome as a forest fire,
in magnitude at least, but a single tree is like a
dancing tongue of flame
to warm the heart.

-Hal Borland

Italy
Ethiopia

I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do. They go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!

-John Muir

Easter Island

_________________________________________

E X H I B I T I O N S

___

ICONS

Arsenali Repubblicani
Pisa, Italy

Mon, Jan 1, 2024 –  Sun, Apr 7, 2024

___

STEVE McCURRY : THE ENDLESS TRAVELER

Peter Fetterman Gallery
Santa Monica, CA

Sat, Jan 27, 2024 –  Sat, Apr 27, 2024

___

STEVE McCURRY

Cavalier Galleries
New York, NY

Thu, Feb 8, 2024 – Sat, Mar 30, 2024

___

ICONS

Seaworks Maritime Precinct
The Main Shed
Melbourne, Australia

Wed, Feb 28, 2024 – Sun, May 26, 2024

___________________________________

NEW BOOK
D E V O T I O N

Reproduced in stunning color, these photographs honor the universal desire to create meaning in the midst of everyday life and offer viewers an opportunity to connect with their own spirituality—whatever form that takes.

More about Devotion here –
https://www.stevemccurry.com/news/steve-mccurry-presents-devotion

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Eloquence of the Eye

The soul has an interpreter – often an unconscious
but still a faithful interpreter – in the eye.
– Charlotte Bronte

Sanaa, Yemen

Her eyes are homes of silent prayers.
– Lord Alfred Tennyson

Omo Valley, Ethiopia

The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God’s eye are one eye,
one seeing, one knowing, one love.
– Meister Eckhart,  1259 – 1327

Afghanistan

These eyes tell the stories of
children around the world.
They speak of war, deprivation, and loss.

Rajasthan, India
Umbria, Italy

From women’s eyes this doctrine I derive: They sparkle still the right Promethean fire; They are the books, the arts, the academes, That show, contain and nourish all the world.
 William Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost

Rajasthan, India

There is a road from the eye to heart
that does not go through the intellect.
G. K. Chesterton

Lhasa, Tibet
Nuristan, Afghanistan

When the heart is full, the eyes overflow.
– Sholom Aleichem

Bombay, India

Bagan, Burma
Baluchistan, Pakistan

The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.
-Henri Bergson

Tahoua, Niger

The eyes are the most powerful social signalers that we have and hence are sometimes called the windows of the soul.
– Glen Wilson

Srinagar, Kashmir

Eyes are more accurate witnesses than ears.
– Heraclitus of Ephesus, 535 – c. 475 BCE

Lourdes, France

Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?
– Henry David Thoreau

La Esperanza, Colombia

Eyes have their own universal language, and
no interpreter is needed.

Baluchistan, Pakistan

Afghanistan

The countenance is the portrait of the soul,
and the eyes mark its intentions.
– Marcus Tullius Cicero, 106 – 43 BCE

Gao, Mali
Kashmir

The face is the mirror of the mind,
and eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart.
– St. Jerome

Please check out linktr.ee/stevemccurry to see what’s new
at Steve McCurry Studios.

My new book, In Search of Elsewhere, will be released this fall in five language editions. Click here to pre-order.

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Every Day is Mothers’ Day

 

Havana, Cuba

Motherhood: All love begins and ends there.
– Robert Browning

Benin

Bamiyan, Afghanistan

TIBET-10126NF
Tagong, Kham, Tibet

Mississippi, USA

It may be possible to gild pure gold, but who can make his mother more beautiful?
– Mahatma Gandhi

Oaxaca, Mexico

Republic of Montenegro

Hong Kong, China

All that I am, or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.
– Abraham Lincoln

Kashmir

Lhasa, Tibet

Mother is the name for God in the lips
and hearts of little children. 

– William Makepeace Thackeray

Germany

Srinagar, Kashmir

Mother: the most beautiful word
on the lips of mankind.
—Kahlil Gibran

Tokyo, Japan

Paris, France 

Artists have been depicting the special bond between mothers and their children for hundreds of years.

Rybinsk, Russia 

Relationships can be difficult to describe, and sometimes an image tells the story better than words. One of the most powerful and unforgettable photos depicting a mother and her children in the history of photography is Dorothea Lange’s photograph of a destitute mother and her children taken in 1936.

Dorothea Lange said in an interview about the picture, “She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean-to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me.” 

Sahel, Mali

Mumbai, India 

AFGHN-12094NF2
Kamdesh, Afghanistan

“A mother’s love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law…
– Agatha Christie

Doris Mae Stevens McCurry holding Steve, Baltimore, MD

Music: Reverie by Scott Buckley

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Water – The Essence of Life

Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can’t go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.
Margaret Atwood

Weligama, Sri Lanka

Croatia

Cochin/Kochi, Kerala, South India

Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.
W. H. Auden

Bencota, Sri Lanka

Nepal

Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Queenstown, New Zealand

Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.
Laozi

Umbria, Italy

Inle Lake, Burma/Myanmar

A man of wisdom delights in water.
Confucius

Rijeka, Croatia

Munich, Germany

If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.
Loren Eiseley

Dal Lake, Kashmir

Dominican Republic

Cascata Delle Marmore, Umbria, Italy

When you put your hand in a flowing stream,
you touch the last that has gone before and the
first of what is still to come.

Leonardo da Vinci

Sulu Sea, Philippines

And gentle winds and waters near, make music to the lonely ear.
Lord Byron

Umbria, Italy

Water is the soul of the Earth.
W. H. Auden

Sankei-en Garden, Yokohama, Japan

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Niger River, Mali

Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India

In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans …
– Khalil Gibran

Fiji

Madrid, Spain

Water is also one of the four elements,
the most beautiful of God’s creations.
It is both wet and cold, heavy, and with a
tendency to descend,
and flows with great readiness. 

John of Damascus, Syrian monk

Cape Town, South Africa

Water is the driving force of all nature.
Leonardo da Vinci

Ireland

In time and with water, everything changes.
Leonardo da Vinci

Tibet

Tahiti, French Polynesia

All water has a perfect memory and is forever
trying to get back to where it was.

– Toni Morrison

Australia

Water is life’s matter and matrix, mother and medium.
There is no life without water.

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

California, USA

Don’t you realize that the sea is the home of water?
All water is off on a journey unless it’s in the sea, and
it’s homesick, and bound to make its way home someday.

Zora Neale Hurston

Havana, Cuba

Fiji

Bombay, India

Water, like religion and ideology, has the power to move millions of people. Since the very birth of human civilization, people have moved to settle close to it. People move when there is too little of it. People move when there is too much of it. People journey down it. People write, sing and dance about it. People fight over it. And all people, everywhere and every day, need it.
Mikhail Gorbachev

Bamiyan, Afghanistan

We never know the worth of water till the well is dry.
Thomas Fuller

Suri Tribe, Tulget, Omo Valley, Ethiopia

To understand water is to understand the cosmos,
the marvels of nature, and life itself.

Masaru Emoto

Rajasthan, India

Water is being depleted many, many times faster
than nature can replenish it.

Maude Barlow

India

India

Afghanistan

Kabul, Afghanistan

Clean water, the essence of life and a birthright for everyone,
must become available to all people now.
– Jean-Michel Cousteau