This photograph won a Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography in
1994 for the photographer, Kevin Carter. The incredibly powerful image illustrates
the terrible plight of those inflicted by desperate poverty. Carter took the
photograph during a trip to the Sudan in 1993.
Kevin Carter was a South African photojournalist.
In 1993, Carter
who was working for the South African anti-apartheid newspaper ‘Weekly Mail,’
along with his friend João Silva headed north into Sudan to cover the famine
there. Landing near the village of Ayod, Carter and Silva began work at an
overwhelmed feeding centre.
Carter found the scene distressing and took a
stroll in the bush to calm his nerves.
Then, he found
a young African girl was crawling weakly towards the centre of a
clearing. She didn't have the energy to stand and, emaciated, stood little
chance of survival. He crouched with his camera, ready to frame an
eye-level shot. As he did so, a vulture landed behind her, obviously awaiting
the moment of death. He carefully framed the photograph, being careful not to
disturb the bird, and clicked. He did not helped the girl. Utterly depressed, he
went back to Silva.
What
happened to the child after Carter left is unknown to the world..
The New York Times bought Carter's shot
and ran it on 23 March. The newspaper was swamped with letters and telephone
calls, many asking what had happened to the child. Within days, the photograph
was a global icon. However, Carter faced fierce criticism for abandoning the
child
On 27 July 1994 Carter drove to the
Braamfontein Spruit River, near the Field and Study Centre, an area where he
used to play as a child, and took his own life by taping one end of a hose to
his pickup truck’s exhaust pipe and running the other end to the passenger-side
window. He died of carbon monoxide poisoning, aged 33.
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