Travelling the world over the last decades, photojournalist Steve McCurry has shot some of the most compelling photo portraits of our time. He is best known for his picture of the green eyed Afghan girl who stared out from the front page of National Geographic in 1985.

Here are some of my favorite pictures of Steve. Be sure to visit his website and his blog to get inspired by so many more great pictures.

A retrospective of his work is currently on show at the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, where he spoke about his methods and in more detail about a number of his pictures:

When walking in the street I’m opened up to a certain kind of person, a person who will speak to me in a very profound way, and once I find that person, I get very excited. I suddenly get very enthusiastic, and I think my enthusiasm is infectious and suddenly we have this chemistry, this sort of bond where I’m so enamoured with them and how they look and how the present themselves.

It’s actually a really quite an odd thing to walk up to a stranger and yet within a matter of seconds to be able to try and persuade them to actually stop what they were doing and to allow me to take their picture. I’ve sort of developed a way that is in part showing respect, plus there’s an element of humour to try and defuse the sort of embarrassing, awkward situation.

 Read the full interview at Viewfinder.