'Afghan Girl' photo recalled as Kodak retires old film

Kodak on Monday highlighted the iconic image of a refugee Afghan girl, captured for a cover photo of National Geographic in 1985, as it announced it was retiring the Kodachrome film it was shot on.

Kodak mentioned the photo and published comments from the photo journalist, Steve McCurry, who said that while the film was extensively used early in his career, he had moved on to other films.

"In fact, when I returned to shoot the ‘Afghan Girl’ 17 years later, I used Kodak Professional Ektachrome Film E100VS to create that image, rather than Kodachrome Film as with the original,” McCurry said in a released statement from Kodak.

In 2002, a National Geographic reporter, videographers and McCurry himself returned to a refugee camp in Pakistan to search for the subject of the portrait. According to a report, they eventually learned she was named Sharbat Gula, and was living part time in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan with her husband and children.