Steve McCurry’s ‘Animals I Have Met’: On the Complex Relationship between People and Their Animal Companions
Photographer Steve McCurry contains multitudes within him. In one lifetime and over forty years spent as a photographer, he has managed to go from an amateur street photographer to becoming a war photographer who captured the infamous Afghan Girl before finally transforming into a world-renowned photojournalist who has shaped the National Geographic photo-ethnography aesthetic most are familiar with.
McCurry has spent his entire career photographing other people. However, his series Animals I Have Met shows a different side to the photographer’s work. As the series’ title suggests, these photographs allow him to imbue some of his own thoughts and impressions onto the subject matter, giving him the freedom he does not have as a photojournalist. Taken throughout his decades-long career, Animals I Have Met captures the animal companions he has encountered along the way as they huddle up with their human carers. This means he has photographed everything from conventional pets, such as dogs and cats to farm animals, like horses and cows and even wildlife, such as caribou and warthogs, that live alongside human beings.
These photographs show the unmistakable connection and tenderness shared between humans and animals. Yet, at times, the photographs’ mood and tone seem to convey an underlying darkness. As the series’ title suggests, these pictures are a reflection of McCurry’s ambivalent inner thoughts when he sees other people interact with their animal companions. They gaze in awe and respect at the bond, but they also bring to the surface questions about the ethics of having animal companions, especially if they are wild animals. This is why Animals I Have Met by Steve McCurry is relevant to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals of Life on Land.
The sentiments portrayed in McCurry’s photographs are best explained by John Berger’s critically acclaimed essay, Why Look at Animals. In the essay, Berger asks audiences to think critically about whether or not a life lived so close to human beings is what is best for companion animals. He asks pet owners to set aside the emotional connection that they have with their pets and question if a life spent in cities, away from their natural habitat, eating artificial food such as kibble, is truly what is best for wildlife.
The answer is most likely less positive than what most pet owners would hope for. At the end of the day, the best thing for wild animals is to live far away from human civilization. So that they may live full lives while fulfilling the part they play in the larger planetary ecosystem. Yet still, in a blog post on his website, McCurry displays Animals I Have Met alongside a quote by Anatole France, which reads, “Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.“ Perhaps, more than anything, the love that McCurry is referring to here is fatalistic and tragic, one that believes that to love something is to set it free.
Learn more about Animals I Have Met by Steve McCurry and his other work by checking his Instagram @stevemccurryofficial.