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2013 Pirelli Calendar

To celebrate its 40th calendar, the Italian company has decided to abandon the normal roster of fashion photographers such as Mario Testino and Terry Richardson, who transformed a trade publication into an annual celebration of “glamour” shots to grace the garage wall.

Instead, for 2013, Pirelli turned to one of the world’s most famous war photographers and sent him to Rio, host to the next football World Cup and Olympic Games, and vibrant hub of a country which is booming like never before.

Steve McCurry made his name documenting Afghanistan in the early 1980s, having smuggled himself into the country by growing a beard and wearing traditional dress. The American’s photograph of Sharbat Gula, a teenage Afghan refugee with vivid, haunted green eyes, became one of the most famous images in 20th-century photography after featuring on the cover of National Geographic.

“Well, I certainly didn’t think of myself as an obvious choice,” McCurry admits. “I’m not a fashion photographer. But Pirelli said they wanted me to do it my way, in my style.”

The result is an act of homage to a city and a country that Pirelli recognises as one of its most important future markets. “You can photograph nudes anywhere,” says McCurry. “But these models are clothed, and each of them has her own charity. They are purposeful and idealistic people. I wanted to photograph them in a special place, and Rio was perfect for that.”