At the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in 1984, Gula's picture was taken by National GeographicphotographerSteve McCurry on Kodak's Kodachromecolor slide film. Gula was one of the students in an informal schoolwithin the refugee camp; McCurry, rarely given the opportunity tophotograph Afghan women, seized the opportunity and captured her image.She was approximately 12 years old at the time.
Although her name was not known, her picture, titled "Afghan Girl", appeared on the June 1985 cover of National Geographic. The image of her face, with a red scarf draped loosely over her head and with her piercing sea-green eyesstaring directly into the camera, became a symbol both of the 1980sAfghan conflict and of the refugee situation worldwide. The imageitself was named as "the most recognized photograph" in the history ofthe magazine.