Photograph: Kevin Carter, 1993, Sudan.
Kevin Carter won a Pulitzer Prize for his famous photograph of a Sudanese girl being stalked by a vulture. However, leaving the scene after taking the photograph without helping the child brought criticism and controversy for the photograph and Carter as a photojournalist. The same year of receiving the prize, Carter committed suicide. One might say that his suicide was a direct result of his experience with the Sudanese girl as implied in the message.
In March 1993 Kevin Carter made a trip to Sudan. The trip to Sudan was part of the assignment he was doing. There were parents who left their children to briefly collect food from the plane. While they were away, Carter found a girl who had stopped to rest while struggling to get to a United Nations feeding centre near a village of Ayod. While the young girl was struggling to get to the centre, a vulture had landed nearby. Carter waited for twenty minutes until the vulture was close enough without disturbing it and scaring it away, positioned himself for the best possible photo and only then after his best shot which was shot from approximately 10 meters, chased the vulture away.
Doing what he did best, he shot a powerful photograph of which he was not aware that he had shot one of the most controversial photographs in the history of photojournalism.
The photograph was sold to The New York Times where it appeared for the first time on March 26, 1993. Many people contacted the publication to ask whether the child had survived or not. This led the publication to run a special editor’s note saying that the girl had enough strength to walk away from the vulture, whereas her ultimate fate was unknown.
Carter was bombarded with questions about why he used the girl but did not help the her where as he chased the vulture after taking photographs. Criticism followed in a large scale even by other publications. The St. Petersburg Times in Florida wrote: “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”.
People criticized the photograph even though Carter explained that he did chase the Vulture away from the girl. The criticism was based on the bases that Carter did not chase the Vulture immediately after it landed near the girl and that he chased the vulture after taking the photographs and left the girl there in a weak condition to continue the journey by her self towards the feeding center.
While working in Sudan, Photojournalists were told not to touch famine victims for fear of spreading of the disease as there were almost twenty people dying in an hour at the food center. The child was sick just as others. Regardless of Carter often helping or not, there was not going to be any difference. However, Carter said that he regret not doing anything to help the girl.
In 1994, Kevin Carter won the Pulitzer prize for the ‘disturbing’ photograph of a Sudanese child being stalked by a vulture.
Kevin Carter’s photograph won a Pulitzer Prize because it is considered the best and it is ethical.
Photographs shape our culture in different ways both ethically, morally, and logically. They tell stories and some people understand them better than texts, even though they might interpret them differently. Yes, some photographs might be misleading because of programmes like Photoshop that manipulates them. But Photographs reveal unlimited truths, expose misconducts and negligence, inspire hope and understanding and connect people around the world through the language of visual understanding. This is to say that Kevin Carter’s photograph is powerful and ethical because it tells a real life story about Africa. It shows people of the conditions some countries come across.
According to an ethical philosophy outlined by a California State University Fullerton, Professor Paul Martin Lester which is called Utilitarianism. The philosophy attempts to balance positives and negatives of a situation, and maximize the good for the highest number of people. For example, if horrific photos of a car crash offend the victims’ families, but shock the community into driving safely, then by Utilitarianism the taking and publication of those photos is considered to be ethical. Similar to Kevin Carter’s photograph, if the sensitive and nude photo of a starving child in Sudan offend some viewers or her close relatives and family, but shock the neighbouring countries and other countries around the world in wanting to help Sudan in terms of starvation and poverty situations they are facing then it is also considered ethical. Some countries might want to donate money, and some might donate health facility equipments to cure the already affected victims by seeing the photo.
Kevin carter might not have put aside the camera but he did offer help to the Sudanese Girl by chasing away the vulture to show that not only did he publish the photo for rankings but to cry out for help from other countries which is also ethical, even though he did not realize it.
On 27 July 1994 Carter drove his way to Parkmore near the Field and Study Center, an area where he used to play as a child. He committed suicide there by taping one end of a hose to his pickup truck’s exhaust pipe and running the other end to the driver’s side window. He died of carbon monoxide poisoning at the age of 33.
Sources:
1. http://rarehistoricalphotos.com/vulture-little-girl/
2. http://www.hoax-slayer.com/kevin-carter-pulitzer.shtml
Lebogang_Nkhabelane 