It was in the month of March, 1993 a journalist photographer Kevin Carter had been to Sudan where he took the iconic photo of a vulture waiting to make a starving little girl as its prey. The thing that attracted him was the whimpering sound of a toddler near the Ayod village. The girl was starved, tired and was struggling to get to a feeding centre where its parents were there picking food from a UN plane near by.
(Image courtesy: Kevin carter)
Then this haunting photograph appeared for the first time on New York Times Paper on March 26. 1993. Hundreds of people contacted the paper questioning whether the little girl had survived to which they had no accurate answer. Carter was highly criticised for not assisting the girl but concentrated in taking the photograph. The St. Petersburg Times wrote this about him: “The man adjusting his lens to take just the right frame of her suffering might just as well be a predator, another vulture on the scene.”
However Carter won the pulitzer for this marvelous photo but he was deeply depressed and haunted by the questions about the fate of the girl. And 3 months after receiving the prize, Carter committed suicide and note read,
“I’m really, really sorry. The pain of life overrides the joy to the point that joy does not exist… depressed … without phone … money for rent … money for child support … money for debts … money!!! … I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings and corpses and anger and pain … of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners … I have gone to join Ken if I am that lucky.”
However
1.He confessed that he waited 20 minutes for the vulture to fly away and when it didn’t, Carter snapped the haunting photograph and chased away the vulture.
2. There was a rule for the journalists in sudan. They are not supposed to touch the victims of famine to avoid the risk of transmitting diseases.
Few people are just incredible right?
Hope you liked this article ” How an award winning photo killed a photographer”. Happy World Photography Day
To book home services online, Visit bro4u.com
Hope this article was informative. Make most out of your weekend while we take care of your service needs. We at Bro4u provide 50+ home services from laundry, Home Cleaning, carpenter, electrician, car wash, bike service and more to your doorstep. To all our readers on our blog, we have an exclusive offer on the Bro4u App.
Best Home Sevices App in Bangalore – bro4u
