Steve McCurry's portrait of India is a feast for the eyes Published duration 20 December 2015

image copyright Steve McCurry image caption A crowd carries a man during the Holi festival, Rajasthan, 1996

Celebrated American photographer Steve McCurry has been coming to India for more than three decades.

The photographer, who has visited India more than 60 times, once said the country had taught him to watch and wait on life.

"If you wait, people would forget your camera and the soul world drifts into view," he told an interviewer

McCurry, whose picture of a young orphaned Afghan girl with green eyes became an iconic image of war and the most recognised picture in the history of National Geographic magazine, has now published a book of his pictures of India.

"These magnificent pictures, some justly famous, many new and revelatory - reveal the beauty of the country and highlights its extraordinary contradictions," writes author William Dalrymple in his introduction.

"This is a very different India indeed, and it is here, in the places suspended between modernity and tradition, that most of the pictures in the book were made."

Here is a selection from Steve McCurry: India published by Phaidon/Roli Books.

image copyright Steve McCurry image caption Tribal elder, Rajasthan, 2010

image copyright Steve McCurry image caption Bicycles hang on the side of a train, West Bengal, 1983

image copyright Steve McCurry image caption Devotee carries statue of Hindu god Ganesh into the Arabian sea during an immersion ritual, Mumbai 1993

image copyright Steve McCurry image caption Mahouts sleep with their elephant, Rajasthan, 2012

image copyright Steve McCurry image caption Steam engine passes in front of the Taj Mahal, Agra, 1983

image copyright Steve McCurry image caption Reflection of the Taj Mahal, Agra, 1999

image copyright Steve McCurry image caption India's camel border patrol in Thar Desert, Rajasthan, 1996

image copyright Steve McCurry image caption Men carry an abandoned car to a workshop, Kolkata, 1996