The Price of Being Captured

This photo series addresses the checkered past of photojournalism by attempting to disarm The West’s conditioned understanding of people from the Middle East and South Asia as either exotic or religious extremists. This inaccurate portrayal by Western media homogenises and dehumanises these people by denying their intersectionality, thereby promoting racist stereotypes. The most famous example of this is Steve McCurry’s Afghan Girl for the cover of National Geographic’s June 1985 edition. This image rocketed McCurry to stardom, whilst he did not so much as ask her name, let alone her consent to take the photograph.