Steve McCurry has been around the block -- and then some.

While on assignment as a photographer for National Geographic, his plane crashed into a lake in the Balkans. In another incident, he was attacked by a mob while photographing a religious ceremony. Another plane on which he was a passenger got lost in Africa and, while searching for a place to land, ran out of gas and made an emergency landing.

Twice it's been reported that he had been killed.

Decidedly alive and well, Mr. McCurry will speak at 7:30 p.m. today on his photography, cultures he has explored, globalization and his method for capturing the essence of a person through the art of portraiture.

The presentation is in Steele Hall on the campus of California University of Pennsylvania and is being held in conjunction with a photography exhibit titled "In Focus: National Geographic's Greatest Portraits" on view on the third floor of Cal U.'s Mandarino Library.

The talk and exhibit of 56 color and black-and-white photographs, including Mr. McCurry's iconic "Afghan Girl" portrait, are open to the public and free of charge.

A native of Philadelphia and a 1974 graduate of Penn State University's College of Arts and Architecture with a degree in cinematography, Mr. McCurry's interest in photography took root while taking photos for The Daily Collegian, Penn State's newspaper.

After graduation he worked for a suburban Philadelphia newspaper, then traveled to India to experience that vast country through photography. He stayed there two years working as a freelancer.

Mr. McCurry returned to the United States and took on several photographic assignments for National Geographic. His career took off in the 1980s, when he donned native garb and crossed the border from Pakistan into rebel-controlled Afghanistan just prior to the Russian invasion.

When he left that war-torn nation, he had rolls of film sewn in his clothes that held images that were some of the first in the world to show the extent of the conflict. His coverage won the Robert Capa Gold Medal from the Overseas Press Club of America for best photographic reporting from abroad. The award is presented to photographers exhibiting "exceptional courage and enterprise."

Mr. McCurry's most renowned photograph, "Afghan Girl," appeared on the cover of the June 1985 issue of National Geographic and has been called the magazine's most recognizable photograph. The identity of the girl was unknown until 2002 when, after a 15-year search, Mr. McCurry found her living in Pakistan.

"I went back to the same refugee camp where I originally photographed her and asked if anyone remembered her," he said in a phone interview. "I finally came across someone who knew her brother, who lived in Afghanistan. It was he who told me [where she was]."

Mr. McCurry revisited the woman, Sharbat Gulu, photographed her again and reported that, after almost two decades, "her skin is weathered, there are wrinkles now, but she is as striking as she was all those years ago."

Although the photographer has worked in many regions of conflict (the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, the Iran-Iraq war, Beirut, Cambodia, the Philippines, the Gulf War, the continuing conflict in Afghanistan and the destruction of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001), he is known for his ability to cross the boundaries of language and culture to capture stories of the human experience.

"My images are grounded in people," he said. "I look for the unguarded moment, the essential soul peeking out, experience etched on a person's face. ... If you wait, people will forget your camera, and the soul will drift into view."

Mr. McCurry's work has been featured in numerous major magazines around the world for which he's won many of photography's top awards. With several books to his credit, he's also had several of his subsequent photos make the cover of National Geographic.

Those attending tonight can visit the exhibit, which runs through Nov. 11. For more, call 724-938-5244.

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