Afghan Girl
1985 cover photograph on National Geographic magazine / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Afghan Girl is a 1984 photographic portrait of Sharbat Gula, an Afghan refugee in Pakistan during the Soviet–Afghan War. The photograph, taken by American photojournalist Steve McCurry near the Pakistani city of Peshawar, appeared on the June 1985 cover of National Geographic.[1][2][3][4] While the portrait's subject initially remained unknown, she was identified by early 2002: Gula, an ethnic Pashtun from Afghanistan's Nangarhar Province, was a 12-year-old child residing in Pakistan's Nasir Bagh.
Afghan Girl | |
---|---|
Year | 1984 |
Medium | Kodachrome 64 colour-slide film, via Nikon FM2 camera and Nikkor 105mm Ai-S f/2.5 lens |
Subject | Sharbat Gula |
Owner | Steve McCurry |
In light of the Cold War, the portrait was described as the "First World's Third World Mona Lisa"[5] in reference to the 16th-century painting of the same name by Leonardo da Vinci.[6][7] Gula's image became "emblematic" in some social circles as the "refugee girl/woman located in some distant camp" that was deserving of compassion from the Western viewer,[8] and also as a symbol of Afghanistan to the West.[9] CNN called it the 'world's most famous photograph'.[10]