The well-known photograph of an Afghan refugee, entitled “Afghan Girl”, was taken by Steve McCurry in 1985. It became extremely famous after it was used as the cover photograph for the June 1985 issue of National Geographic.
The subject of the photograph is Sharbat Gula, a refugee and orphan who had been driven out of Afghanistan by the Soviet Occupation. Soviet helicopter gunships attacked her village in the early 1980s killing both her parents. Gula, her grandmother and her siblings journeyed over the mountains to the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in Pakistan in 1984.
The photo was taken of her by McCurry at Nasir Bagh camp when she was approximately 12 years old. I bet McCurry was glad he brought his np20 with him or his camera may not have been charged and the photo would never have been taken! The photo is often referred to as “the Afghan Mona Lisa”, likened to Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” painting.