Cole’s Primary Claim about Singh’s and McCurry’s Photos

Teju Cole’s “A Too Perfect Picture”
The New York Times is a prestige publication, home for world-class articles. Here, one can find this particular article by Teju Cole. “A Too Perfect Picture” discusses the renowned works of Steve McCurry and Raghubir Singh.
McCurry
Cole described McCurry’s work as “boring, but extremely popular”. He goes on to claim that anyone who sees McCurry’s photos would definitely know it is McCurry’s. He further talks about this popularity by mentioning the thousands of followers McCurry has on Instagram.
In this article, Cole talk about the printed cover of the June 1985 National Geographic. One of the most emblematic photos of the 20th century. This is the portrait of an Afghan girl with bright green eyes. Cole describe this, in his words, as “stark and direct, with strong colors, a clear emotional appeal and crisp composition”.
McCurry gets the subject to look straight and wide-eyed to the lens of the camera. He chooses subjects who are simple but has something that will catch the att...