Pulitzer Prize Winning Photo That Haunts Me

I'm not sure if anyone noted that Kevin Carter, the photographer of the vulture and child, committed suicide just months after winning the Puliter Prize for photojournalism.

Kevin Carter (1961-1994) - South Africa Pulitzer Prize winner, Kevin Carter, took his own life months after winning the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography for a haunting Sudan famine picture. A free-lance photographer for Reuter and Sygma Photo NY and former PixEditor of the Mail&Gaurdian, Kevin dedicated his carrer to covering the ongoing conflict in his native South Africa. He was highly honoured by the prestigious Ilford Photo Press Awards on several occasions including News Picture of the Year 1993. Kevin is survived by a seven year old daughter, Megan.

www.picturenet.co.za...

Google Search

[edit on 2007/2/19 by GradyPhilpott]

"I am depressed ... without phone ... money for rent ... money for child support ... money for debts ... money!!! ... I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings & corpses & anger & 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."

These are the words attributed to Kevin Carter in his suicide note.

It looks like his world was crashing in on him.

i am shocked at how some of you people are judging kevin carter i am not trying to defend him, but i have to ask before you commented on this did u ask yourselves if you have done anything about the situation in sudan? have you ever once researched and found out how their case is? And the sad thing is that that photo was taken in 1994 and the same situation is going on today 2007. Do you people even know such a country existed everyday people in sudan live in constant fear and starvation because they are being raided by the militia group. i am only 15 years old, true i may know more because i am african but that is not even an excuse, and to top this is that it is not only happening in sudan somalia has the same situation, kenya has the same situation, ethiopia has the same situatioon. so i ask you WHAT HAVE YOU DONE ABOUT IT?? if nothing dont bother replying

reply to post by Netchicken



Evil is on Earth, everywhere we look. Because we fail to act to change it...we foster it instead...The only way that evil can thrive is for good men and women to do nothing...His inaction deserved judgment by his peers, and thank God it was his peers, it gives me hope that many of those in his line of work would have helped, not just attempted to selfishly profit. I cannot imagine how he did nothing...safeguards against catching illness are not complicated for short term contact...while I am sure they'd advise against sharing meals, grooming tools, clothing, kisses, hand holding without hand washing frequently, simple measures would have eliminated any danger of his contracting a disease he wasn't already inoculated against (as is required in areas with commonly contracted disease)I only learned about his failure to act in her behalf this moment, it is unfathomable to me that he left that baby lying with her precious face in the dirt waiting to be eaten alive by a giant bird that must have terrified her, all children are afraid of being "eaten up" by things, even if that hadn't been the intent of the bird, she'd have believed it was, it must have been utterly terrifying thus beyond cruel to do more than immediately snap a photo and shoo the bird as he rescued the child.

No we can't save them all, but its criminal not to save those that we can..he could have saved that one...Christ himself said that every little thing we do for those in need, we do for Him, in the same sense as if we had in fact, in the case of a child carried to a source of nourishment, hydration or safety, carried Him personally to nourishment, hydration and safety. For those lacking a spiritual belief similar to my own, perhaps the photographer could have redeemed himself in terms of ethics/morals (which apply to everyone) with a pair of gloves, a cotton mask and a heart that pitied someone other than himself. Suicide is never the way, but in this case, it isn't hard to understand and even gives one hope that it means that he really did care after all...and not just about the consequences to his own life but to what it cost that tiny helpless kitten of a child...with enough will yet to live that her tiny heart survived the terror of a vulture hovering over her for near a half hour while the photographer secured his prize then left the vulture to secure its meal.

If there is a God, and I believe there is, then I think maybe He cried that day.

This is a very sad story, very sad.

But ask yourself, how much good came from this photograph? how many people saw this photograph and decided to help in one way or another, simply because they are shocked?

This Picture could have started a chain worth 1000's of lives saved? simply because of the award, millions upon millions of people saw that picture, because people are interested in the great award, even the amateur photographer would have wanted to see it, just to see what is expected.

Out of all those millions upon millions how many where touched? how many had their heart opened? how many felt guilty?

Yes he should have done more for the girl, without doubt, maybe it was his destiny just to show the world that little girl and the Bird, at that second, everything for a reason. You Know?

[edit on 14/10/2008 by azzllin]