Kevin Carter, a photographer that not many might know, but years ago he was one of the most popular photographers then~ but how his life ended wasn't something beautiful...Well the story might be a little long, but if you have the time I suggest reading it.... I mean... you SHOULD since you've already clicked on the Read More button... and since I've directly copied it word by word from the Amature Photograpy Magazine which took me almost an hour or so to write it all down...
in early March 1993, a United Nations jet flying under the banner of it's Operation Lifeline Sudan initiative, touched down in the parched famine belts of southern Sudan. Kevin Carter, a veretan photographer of the power struggles in his native South Africa, took leave from his day job and borrowed money to join this UN flight so that he could document the rebel movement in Sudan.
During a stopoever of 30minutes while the UN delegation distributed food, Carter and fellow South Africa photojournalist Joao Silva disembarked to have a wander around, intend on photographing local guernila fighters. Silva hurried into the nearby village. Carter, however, stayed near the plane. Years covering conflict and suffering had taken their toll on him. and the solace he sought in the camaraderie of his fellow photographers, as well as dagga, the locally grown marijuana plants, seemed to help him get by. Silva recalls, however, that this was Carter's first time in a famine situation, and he wore his shock across his face.
Nevertheless, Carter carried on with his job. As parents queued to collect rations of food, their children lingered behind. The children interested Carter, and he began photographing them as they lined up on the outskirts, looking on in desperation. He took a series of pictures, but eventually the scene became too overwhelming and he walked off. It was then that a faint whimpering caught his attention. Overcome and hollowed by hunger, Carter saw an emaciated young girl collapsed with exhaustion. Behind her, a vulture landed and watched in anticipation.
Intinctively, Carter crept slowly forward until he was just ten meters away, and both the girl and the vulture was in focus. He waitied 20minutes for the vulture to spread its wings, but when it refused Carter took the picture. He took more, and the vulture eventually flew away. Carter then found a place to sit, where he lit a cigarette and talked to God in between sobs and tears. "He was depressed afterwards" Silva recalls. "He kept saying he wanted to hug his daugher.
Carter didn't know it yet, but the reluctant journalist had taken what has become the most lauded and heavily criticised image of all time. On 26 march his picture first appeared in print in The New York Times, and thousands of enquiries into the fate of the young girl followed. Public interest prompted a special editor's note. Explaining that the young girl pulled herself up and walked away, but her ultimate fate remained unknown.
Meanwhile the image was reproduced around the world and became an icon for Africa's plight. Colleagues and acquaintances phoned Carter one by one and congratulated him on his work. Buoyed by newfound fame, he quit his day job and signed on with Reuters as a freelancer with a guranteed $2000 a month. A year later he won the conveted Puitzer Prize for featured photographer. Carter wrote to his parents in Johnannesburg: "I swear I got the most applause of anybody... I can't wait to show you the trophy. It is the most precious thing, and the highest acknowledgment of my work I could receive."
Yet with success came scom. Mixed between allegations of faking the scene were more serious accusations of journalistic irresponsibility. "The man adjusting his lens to take just the right frame of her suffering might as well be a predator, another vulture on the scene," opined Florida's St. Petersburg Times in a scathing editorial. Even friends questioned Carter's lack of response to the girl's obvious peril.
Carter had long been a troubled soul known for the tumultuousness of his moods, and when the number of criticism began matching his successes it only served to feed his constant self-doubt. Carter suffered under the pressure. He struggled with drug abuse and a string of failed relationships, as well as professional errors that left him worrying about his financial security. On top of his constant visions of death, the impact of his iconic image consumed him, and those close to him recall how he withdrew in the months after his image was published. "Kevin always carried around the horror of the work he did," his father said, and it was partly his inability to distant himself from the horror he saw that lef to Carter taking his own life.
On July 1994, just months after he won a Pulitzer, the 33-year-old Carter drove his pick-up truck into the suburbs of Johnannesburg and parked it against a gum tree where he often played as a small boy. With silver gaffer tape, he attached a garden hose to his exhaust pipe and ran the other end through the passenger-side window. The note on the passenger seat read,
"I'm really, really sorry. The pain of life overrides the joy to the point that joy does not exist."
Well not many of us would understand this story or even know the photographer... But I guess one thing that might make us remember it by seeing this award winning picture that he took~
Forgot what was the title of this picture already... but this was the picture caused the world to weep then in realizing the sufferings happening in Sudan~But I guess there's alot we can learn from this story, do you think what he did was right, or was it wrong... well I guess it's to your own opinion~~
There's still so much to talk about my fingers burning d... gotta rest them now~~ =)
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