How long you have to grind to become Steve McCurry, the biggest reportage photographer of all time?
The answer is enclosed in the amazing exhibition at the Venaria Reale (until 25 September 2016), entitled not by chance "The World of Steve McCurry", that is precisely a long journey on the roads of the world lasted so far thirty years, from Afghanistan to AfghanistanIndia, from Southeast Asia to Africa, from Cuba to the United States, from Brazil to Italy.
Steve McCurry, the "Afgana Girl" and I at the preview of the exhibition at the Royal Venaria
Organized by Civita and SudEst57, it is the most complete exhibition ever made in our country. Through over 250 photos of great format tells the professional adventure of an undisputed myth for entire generations of photoreporters, for which the journey has become a dimension of life: «Because already the only travel and deepening knowledge of different cultures, gives me joy and gives me an inexhaustible charge». 
The tour opens with an unusual section of black and white photos taken between 1979 and 1980 in its first reportage in Afghanistan, where he had joined the mujaheddins fighting against the Soviet invasion, and concludes with some recent photos, taken again in Afghanistan, a country he loves deeply and to which he owes planetary notoriety. 
It was in fact in the Peshawar refugee camp that in 1984 he photographed the "Afghan girl", became an absolute icon of world photography and, failing to say, the symbol of the exhibition. A few meters further there is also "Sharbat Gula", an image of the same girl, now a woman, taken by McCurry in 2002, after finally finding her at the end of a long 17-year research. 
«In the first there was surprise and curiosity, after 17 years and 4 children his marked skin betrayed a hard and tiring life, but also the history and fear of a people». But the eyes are the same, even if they tell different stories. 
And the powerful looks of his portraits, caught with extraordinary intensity, are the distinguishing figure of the exhibition that spreads as a sort of circle where age, culture, ethnicity mix. 
Expressions that only seem to be caught on the fly, but in reality they are the result of a patient work to conquer the trust of the people who photograph: «I learned to be patient. If you wait enough, people forget the camera and their soul begins to librate towards you». 
Intensity of the places and the centrality of the people also characterize the 40 evocative shots, exhibited and made by McCurry among the coffee makers in Africa, Latin America and Asia within the framework of ITIERRA!, the main sustainability project carried out by Washing. 
There are also the most terrible shots, which document the war, violence and atrocities of which, unfortunately, humanity knows how to become protagonist and which has documented with its target of reporters, from the Twin Towers photographed by his study in New York to the Gulf War, from the war in Afghanistan to Japan after the tsunami, from the children soldier recruited in particular in the Middle East. 
Each shot is a story accomplished, made even more lively and exciting by the author’s words, than in the audioguide available to all visitors and included in the entry ticket (€12), first person tells his photos with anecdotes and exciting testimonies.
