One last picture in the “Women: A Century of Change” exhibit at National Geographic.

It’s been called the most famous photograph in the world, and I imagine everybody has seen it in one form or another, but it was breathtaking in person.

The sign accompanying it reads: “The ‘Afghan Girl,’ Sharbat Gula, sits in a refugee camp in Pakistan. Steve McCurry, 1984”

Post script: McCurry made several unsuccessful attempts during the 1990s to locate her. In January 2002 a National Geographic team traveled to Afghanistan to locate the subject. McCurry, upon learning that the refugee camp in Pakistan was soon to close, inquired of its remaining residents, one of whom knew Gula's brother and was able to send word to her hometown.

The team located Gula, then around the age of 30, in a remote region of Afghanistan; she had returned to her native country from the refugee camp in 1992. She recalled being photographed. She had been photographed on only three occasions: in 1984 and during the search for her when a National Geographic producer took the identifying pictures that led to the reunion with Steve McCurry. She had never seen the Afghan Girl image before it was shown to her in January 2002.

Best to view in "Original" because other versions resized by Pbase are decidedly unsharp.

Lunch is about to be served, posted earlier