How many people were touched by the image he captured? Perhaps even enough to do something about it, make a donation or pressure their representatives in government to take notice of it? That's the power a picture like that can have. And how much good would that have done? Unless they were MAGIC crackers, of course... Besides, feeding the poor kid could have killed him more quickly than anything. Remember the scene from Dachau at the end of Band of Brothers? The doctors had to get the GIs to STOP giving out food, because the bodies of those emaciated men couldn't handle it, and the reintroduction of food needed to be closely monitored by medical personnel. In short, give the guy a break. He was so tortured by it that he fucking shot himself. Isn't that enough?
Could he not capture this photo, and then collect the kid and assist him to the UN food shelter he was crawling towards?
I question the soul of anyone that scares the bird away and then says "my work here is done" and walks away Hope Satan is raping him with a dick the size of a baseball bat while making him look at that picture.
In all fairness to the guy, the standards of his profession were different then than they are now. Many times we say that our country is softening up, but this guy stuck by his guns. Not saying it was right, but it was the norm back then to not interfere.
Really don't see the problem with the photographer. He's there to document bad shit that's going, journalists can't try and save the world at every international crisis they go too. Maybe I'm an ass but I don't see the problem.
Agreed. I'm sure that if the journalists saved every person needing assist over there then they'd be picking up people at every stop.
It was addressed earlier in the thread: - Photographers and journalists were told that interaction with the people would likely make them catch diseases. - The standard back then was neutrality - no matter what. Not interfering/helping was the norm. - The guy killed himself 3 months later (this part is right under the picture that is being quoted, fyi).
i've got some pictures I took last weekend of the bodies they found at Pompeii. You guys interested in me posting them? Don't want to waste my time if not.
this is true people called in by the thousands wanting to know what happened to the child once The Times published the photo. Also, it should be known that the child was not stranded in the middle of nowhere. I don't condone his actions, or lack thereof, but I'm pretty sure the child was on its way to a camp or foodline, but didn't have the strength to proceed.
I have no problem with what that photographer did. He was there with the UN and they said they would land for 30 minutes, only long enough to distribute food. His job was to take pictures, their job was to distribute the food. Starving people were all around him. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Carter The photograph was sold to The New York Times where it appeared for the first time on March 26, 1993. Practically overnight hundreds of people contacted the newspaper to ask whether the child had survived, leading the newspaper to run a special editor's note saying the girl had enough strength to walk away from the vulture, but that her ultimate fate was unknown. According to Silva, they (Carter and Silva) went to Sudan with the United Nations aboard Operation Lifeline Sudan and landed in Southern Sudan on March 11, 1993. The UN told them that they would take off again in 30 minutes (the time necessary to distribute food), so they ran around looking to take shots. The UN started to distribute corn and the women of the village came out of their wooden huts to meet the plane. Silva went looking for guerrilla fighters, while Carter strayed no more than a few dozen feet from the plane. http://www.thisisyesterday.com/ints/KCarter.html The suicide note he left behind is a litany of nightmares and dark visions, a clutching attempt at autobiography, self-analysis, explanation, excuse. After coming home from New York, he wrote, he was "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 . . . " And then this: "I have gone to join Ken if I am that lucky."
alright, i'll post the pictures when i get them uploaded to my new hard drive. and yes, there is a picture of a dog entombed in ash...so i'll apologize ahead of time.
Glad this was posted. It really provides some context. And the fact that the child could walk away rather than dying right there (IMO) should release the photographer from any moral obligation. Who's to say that child didn't get the help they needed and is now prospering... Crazier shit has happened, I'm sure.
The child was able to get to the nutrition that was delivered... what do you want the photog to do? Adopt the kid???
It doesn't say that at all. It says the kid was able to walk away from the vulture. It doesn't say shit about where it went.
Dude was risking getting aids and there were probably multiple kids/adults in that condition. That kind of absolves him imo.
The point is that nobody knows where the child went. If it had enough strength to walk away from a Vulture and (going out on a limb here) was hungry, odds are the kid found food...
NO WAY DUDE THE PHOTOGRAPHER SHOULD HAVE TAKEN HIM TO SHELTER AND LATER ADOPTED HIM AND PAID FOR HIS COLLEGE. That's what I would have done.