STEVE McCURRY has spent the past 25 years shooting documentary articles for publications including National Geographic, Vanity Fair, and The New York Times. This month, Phaidon Press will publish Looking East, a selection of McCurry's portraits, nine of which are presented in this gallery. Unlike most portrait photographers, who tend to rely on large-format cameras, McCurry travels light and fast, with a Nikon 35-millimeter. "It allows me to shoot quickly, in adverse conditions, when there is little time to work," says the 56-year-old New York–based photographer. "And it's much less obtrusive." The effect is a lucid realism most famously seen in the jade stare of Sharbat Gula, who as a young Afghan girl appeared on the cover of National Geographic in June 1985. Click here to see more of McCurry's portraits.