Istoriya of a Photograph | 05
Written by Yusif Babayev
The year was 1984. On the arid, dusty frontier of the Soviet-Afghan War, a photographer on assignment for National Geographic was documenting the humanitarian crisis unfolding in a sprawling refugee camp in Pakistan. He entered a tent being used as a makeshift school for girls, and there, amidst the fear and displacement, he saw a face that would become a defining symbol of a generation. She was a girl no older than twelve, her tattered maroon headscarf framing a face smudged with dust and hardship.
What stopped him, however, were her eyes. They were a brilliant, almost otherworldly green, so intense and full of a complicated mix of fear, anger, and fierce resilience. Photographer Steve McCurry, knowing he had stumbled upon something profound, quietly took his place and aimed his camera. The young girl, having endured immense trauma, stared directly into his lens, not with shyness but with an unflinching gaze that seemed to hold all the sorrow and strength of her nation.
Click
The shutter snapped, capturing a portrait that transcended a simple photo of a refugee. Published on the cover of National Geographic, “Afghan Girl” became an immediate icon, her face the anonymous, piercing symbol of the suffering of refugees and the struggle of the Afghan people. It was a photograph that gave a human face to a distant conflict, a timeless testament to the power of a single gaze to tell a story words could not. Years later, her identity would be discovered—her name, Sharbat Gula—but her image had long since passed into legend.