Afghan Girl, Peshawar, 1984

Sitting in a hotel lobby, Steve McCurry, one of the world’s greatest photojournalists, talks about how important it is to stop and observe the little mundane things in life.

“I mean, look at this carpet... this hideous carpet,” he says pointing at the (ghastly) lobby floor.

“The little details can be fascinating,” says this master of colour and composition. He gets up and outlines shapes I would never have noticed in a million years.

This moment describes in a nutshell the man’s ability to bring things to life, to see pictures in everything.

If the name Steve McCurry has not yet rang a bell, Afghan Girl, the most iconic photograph of the past 30 years, will surely do so.

It is the portrait of a strikingly beautiful 12-year-old refugee, which graced the cover of National Geographic in 1985. It is distinguished by its intense colour, the girl’s green eyes capturing her impoverishment and, yet, a determined sense of dignity.

In a single, breathtaking shot, he captures her story. It is his trademark style, as his exhibition, Odyssey, at St James Cavalier in Valletta, shows.

Mr McCurry, 61, in Malta for a meet and greet talk organised by Eman Pulis, together with the American Embassy, has been working for National Geographic for more than 30 years.

Dust Storm, Rajasthan, India, 1983

His career as a photojournalist began when, disguised in native dress, he crossed the mountains in Afghanistan just before the country was invaded by Russia. He came out hiding the film rolls in the lining of his robe.

Sometimes, his photos – always of people – are so perfect that they look staged. But he never choreographs the image, preferring instead to watch and wait so “people will forget your camera and the soul will drift up into view”.

He would rather use the word “observe” than “wait”. “Waiting implies boredom and this is a process: you are looking, watching and exploring”.

He is soft-spoken, pausing often to search for the right word or to leave sentences hanging. And there is something about his laidback demeanour that makes it easy to see how he blends in with his subjects, giving the possibility to work unobserved.

In fact, he says, to become “invisible” he either works “really fast” or spends enough time with people so he’s “no longer a novelty” and, that way, people are no longer self-conscious around the camera.

And then, of course, there is the simple matter of being at the right place, at the right time. It is pretty much what happened with the Afghan girl picture.

“It all came together the moment the shutter clicked: the light, her expression, what she was wearing.”

He traced her again in 2002, post 9/11, 17 years later. He was simply relieved that she was still alive.

“Her skin is weathered; there are wrinkles now but she is as striking as she was all those years ago,” he says.

Smoking Coal Miner, Pol-e-Khomri, Afghanistan, 2002

He does ot have a favourite photograph, insisting: “It’s like you wouldn’t have a favourite child.”

He says he is more inspired when in Asia: “It’s so different. You have this amazing depth of culture and history and unique character. Here, in the West, we are all kind of headed towards a homogenous look...”

He has travelled the world over from Afghanistan to Burma, China to India, but New York is the place he calls home.

His travels and his job have taught him that things are not always what they seem. “We may think poverty means misery but it might not be so in fact,” he says. Also, he believes that when you scrape off the superficial layers, human beings, wherever in the world they live, are “pretty much the same in the end”.

He is happiest when he has a camera in hand because it helps him to “pay attention to the moment”.

“When I’m taking photographs, I’m not thinking about yesterday or tomorrow or what I’m having for dinner... I am simply alert to the world around me.”

Odyssey runs till Sunday.