Best photojournalism Day 7

A vulture preying upon an emaciated Sudanese toddler near the village of Ayod
A vulture preying upon an emaciated Sudanese toddler near the village of Ayod

March 1993 By Kevin Carter in southern Sudan.

The photograph was sold to The New York Times where it appeared for the first time on March 26, 1993 as ‘metaphor for Africa’s despair’. Practically overnight hundreds of people contacted the newspaper to ask whether the child had survived, leading the newspaper to run an unusual special editor’s note saying the girl had enough strength to walk away from the vulture, but that her ultimate fate was unknown. Journalists in the Sudan were told not to touch the famine victims, because of the risk of transmitting disease, but Carter came under criticism for not helping the girl. “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,” read one editorial.

Carter eventually won the Pulitzer Prize for this photo, but he couldn’t enjoy it. “I’m really, really sorry I didn’t pick the child up,” he confided in a friend. Consumed with the violence he’d witnessed, and haunted by the questions as to the little girl’s fate, he committed suicide three months later.

the photo make me think twice before preparing any feast, cook any extra food, or throw any left over. I kept thinking about the child fate, how much we are blessed and others are cursed.

https://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2009/08/12/vulture-stalking-a-child/

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