This photo won Kevin Carter, a photojournalist of South Africa, the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography in 1994. Taken in March 1993, it portrays an emaciated child being stalked by a vulture. The fate of the girl is unambiguous. The question now is whether to deem the work of the photographer as callous or caring?
Human nature leads us to believe that upon encountering a child in these conditions, it would be obligatory to carry her to safety, to get her away from this vulture who is merely awaiting her death. The exact details about what Carter did after taking this picture are uncertain. Some reports say he simply walked away and did nothing, while others say he chased the vulture away as the girl proceeded to a United Nations’ feeding center.
Some might view his actions, be it one or the other, as shortcoming. While others may see the photo in itself as vulgar and sick, seeing it as someone profiting off the suffering of others.
Shortly after Carter received the Pulitzer Prize for this piece, he committed suicide. He left behind a note that read, “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.”
Although his actions did not have immediate results, he did not save the child nor did he aide in her death; he did bring the world’s attention to this famine. Keep in mind, in this region of Sudan sights like this emaciated child are not uncommon. The little girl is not the only starving child; she is one of hundreds, of possibly thousands.
At the time, Carter received criticism for not helping the girl, but what few know is that Carter took several pictures of children in this same location. Most of them in the same withered state as this little girl, and many of them in tears in desperate need of healthcare and nutrition. Had it been those pictures that won him the Pulitzer Prize, would he have been criticized just the same for not helping all of them?
He was only a photographer, a journalist doing his part in attempting to open the eyes of the world to the horrors of reality. It was these same horrors that drove him to suicide. If his picture had not been so captivating, several people would still be ignorant and oblivious to the ongoing crisis in Sudan.
