People at work: photo by Steve McCurry

Steve McCurry's photo series about work. Here you will not see clerks or taxi drivers, here are the owners of traditional or harsh professions – fishermen, firefighters, artists and so on. Mostly third world countries, but there is also the United States, with its collapsed world trade center. There are masters of teeth insertion right on the street, poppy pickers. When you look at how these people earn their living, you think how good it is that you were not born in India or the Middle East.

Photo (C) Steve McCurry/Steve McCurry

Sri Lankan fishermen catch fish sitting on high poles.

India, 2005. 

India 2000

Calcutta, India, 1996

Afghanistan, 2006

Afghanistan, 1992

On the poppy fields of Afghanistan, 1992

Miners extract precious stones, Afghanistan, 1992.

A resident of Tibet, 2000.

USA, 1991.

Extinguishing a fire at an oil storage facility in Kuwait, 1991.

Street photographer, Kabul, Afghanistan.

Indian women clean the streets of Bombay, 1996.

An Indian businessman waits for a shoemaker to repair his shoes, Bombay, 1996.

Teenage welder, Bobmey, 1996.

Dubrovnik, Croatia, 1989.

Local residents restore a brick kiln, Kandahar, Afghanistan, 1992.

Firefighters on the wreckage of the WTC in New York, USA, 2001.

Firefighters on the wreckage of the World Trade Center in New York, USA, 2001.

A master in the manufacture of crutches. Kabul, Afghanistan, 1992.

Burma, 1994.

Rome, Italy, 2004.

Kashmir, 1992.

The miners give the foreman their personal seals so that he can remove the impression. This is necessary for their subsequent identification, if there is a blockage in the mine.