Steve McCurry, Beetles & Huxley

With a baseball cap on his head and a camera swinging round his neck, Steve McCurry looks more like an Average Joe American tourist than a legendary photojournalist. But that's exactly what Magnum Old Boy McCurry is - and this May, Mayfair's photographic mecca Beetles and Huxley will mount an exhibition of his work.

Many of McCurry's most recognisable images are of people, amongst them the famous Afghan Girl, who stares at the viewer with eyes like blue-green opals. His career started with a trip to Afghanistan in 1979 and the Middle East has, along with India, remained at the heart of his practice ever since. He has, on his beloved (and now discontinued) Kodachrome film, captured the spectrum of human experience in arresting, almost lurid colour. Where many have seen only poverty and conflict, McCurry's focus has always been on the complex identities of his subjects and the stories they inhabit and create.

Also on display will be his documentary photographs of the September 11th attacks - a disarming foil to the intimate portraiture for which he is best known. The link between these and McCurry's reporting from the Middle East is striking, and questions of American imperialism are perhaps inevitable. Viewed side-by-side, these images give an insight into not only the mind of Steve McCurry, but also into contemporary geopolitics at its most relevant and affective.