Famous Photo: Afghan Girl

I'm sure everyone recognize this photograph, and I bet we've all seen it at least once in our lifetime. This photo first appeared on the June 1985 cover of National Geographic and was named as "the most recognized photograph" in the history of the magazine. The photograph was titled 'Afghan Girl'. The girl in the photo was named Sharbat Gula.

In 1984 at the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in Afghanistan, National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry shot this famous photo when he saw Sharbat in an informal school within the camp. Sharbat was 13 years old at the time the picture was taken, and she was one of the students of that school.

What was so striking about this famous photo was undoubtedly the piercing green eyes staring directly into McCurry's camera, along with her war-torn face and a red scarf loosely draped over her head. These details became a symbol of the Afghan conflict in the 1980's.

Gracing the cover to fame

Sharbat is of Pashtun ethnicity and was forced to leave her home during the Soviet Union's bombing of Afghanistan for a refugee camp in Pakistan in 1984. Her village was attacked by Soviet helicopter gunships which killed her parents and led to her orphanage along with her siblings.

In 2002, a special search operation for the Afghan Girl was organized by the National Geographic team, led by Steve McCurry. Their mission was to locate the mysterious girl who became world-wide fame for many years. The team traveled to a remote region in Afghanistan where they believed Sharbat Gula had returned to her native country from the refugee camp in 1992. Her identity was confirmed using biometric technology which matched her iris patterns to those of the photograph.

Sharbat Gula when she was finally discovered in 2002

At the time she was successfully located, Sharbat was already married with 3 daughters, and she was already in her 30's. Although she vividly recalled being photographed by McCurry when she was 13, Sharbat had no clue that she had been famous around the world for many years.

The Search for the Afghan Girl operation became the subject of a television documentary and was featured as part of a cover story in the National Geographic magazine in 2002. During her discovery, Sharbat had expressed the hope that her daughters would receive the education she was never able to complete. In recognition of Sharbat Gula, National Geographic set up the Afghan Girls Fund, a charitable organization with the aim of educating Afghan Women.