Throughout his career, Steve McCurry has often turned his lens toward the animal world — capturing their disorientation amid wars and natural disasters, and exploring their relationship with humans.
This image is particularly striking: it seems as if the elephant has formed a kind of symbiotic bond with the man.
McCurry has photographed elephants in several countries — India, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka.
Here, we are in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where the animal lives in a repopulation and rehabilitation center.
Yet what was actually happening is quite different from what the image suggests.
The boy was sitting against a large rock, reading, when the young elephant came over to rub its back against the same stone.
It looks as though the animal is taking part in the boy’s quiet activity, almost reading along with him — but in reality, McCurry simply captured a fleeting, accidental moment.
It’s the still frame — frozen in time — that gives us this unexpected and touching emotion.