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In 1978, at the age of 28, Steve McCurry left his job as a newspaper photographer in Philadelphia to fulfill one of his greatest dreams: to travel to India.
He bought two hundred rolls of film and set off from the United States.
The beginning was anything but easy. As he later recalled, “Just two weeks after arriving — in a place called Kodaikanal, in the South — I came down with amoebiasis, and I also had to get a series of rabies shots after being bitten by a stray dog.”

In the years that followed, McCurry would return to the subcontinent many times, documenting its countless stories — never shying away from its deep contrasts and injustices.
This photograph achieved worldwide acclaim and was featured on the cover of The Unguarded Moment, one of McCurry’s most celebrated books.

Here we are in Jodhpur, the Blue City of the Brahmins.
After spotting this wall — with its vivid color, perspective, and graffiti — McCurry waited patiently for hours, watching people pass by: women in sarongs, carts, animals, and then… this boy.
His run, his energy — all captured in a split second.
It was the moment McCurry had been waiting for.