Eclipse

[smokingboot]

I have no right to be unhappy right now. My lj should be even more full of twittering nonsense than usual, only I found this. The Times is doing a series of sunday features on great photographs. They included this one:



A gentleman called Kevin Carter took it, and I think won some mammoth award for it. The little girl is dying of hunger. Kevin spent 20 minutes waiting for the vulture to spread its wings for an appropriate shot. Apparently he confided to friends afterwards that he wished he had intervened and saved the girl. Until I read that, it never occurred to me that he hadn't.

He committed suicide months later. Maybe he did help her and never told anyone. Yes, that's a good story, humane, plausible, what any normal human being would do.

I don't believe it.

In my lack of faith, I have no idea if I'm judging his darkness or mine.

Comments

[larians.livejournal.com]

According to Wiki the girl was resting and carried on her journey towards an aid station, her ultimate fate unknown but one could assume that given the fact that the UN stated at the time that 7.1 million Sudanese were threatened by famine that the outlook wasn't good. Aid was very hard to get into the area due to the cival war that was on going.

The photographer chased the bird off after the photo but did not touch the girl in keeping with the medical warnings given at the time due to the risk of catching disease.

He did indeed commit suicide a few months later, after his close friend was murdered.

His suicide note read:

"I am depressed ... without phone ... money for rent ... money for child support ... money for debts ... money!!! ... I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings & corpses & anger & pain ... of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners...I have gone to join Ken if I am that lucky"

It would appear that he did not profit much from this photo and it was just another terrible image that he saw, albeit one that the New York Times made famous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Carter

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

How on earth can Wiki know what happened to the girl? Wiki is often a good place to start, but I would never consider it a failsafe accurate source. According to most of the research I am finding on the web, Kevin lit up a cigarette, talked to god and felt depressed. As to the Pulitzer Prize, he got money and a crack at fame and success. Let's not talk about what she got.

Here's my harsh, black and white judgement on it; he should have helped her. Twenty minutes spent on the observation of a vulture's stance could have been used in other ways. Or even in taking the picture and then getting involved.

We all have moments like that I suppose. Same as he showed her no appropriate pity (meaning that word in its truest sense, without condescension) so I repeat his mistake by showing him none.

Probably something to be learnt there.

[larians.livejournal.com]

I didn't consider it a fail safe source, I looked up the article in question on the New York Times.

Cash reward for the Pulitzer - $5000. Fame and fortune - 3 months and suicide.

She got what millions of others in war torn africa get, starvation and death. I think it a little unfair to blame him for it.

The real tradegy of the whole thing? Sudan hasn't changed, there is still a horendous civil war, 1000s of children are being used as soldeirs and millions are facing starvation.

You can see it all on CNN.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Just cos it happened to millions of others doesn't mean it should have happened to her. She was the focus, for at least 20 minutes (admittedly she shared that time with a vulture, possibly two) of someone who could have saved her life. Something in him was able to switch off from her suffering and connect instead into the aesthetics of a world beating photo.

I am not blaming him for the pains of the suffering world. I am blaming him for one single act he neglected to his gain and her cost.

[squeezypaws.livejournal.com]

I have a problem with a LOT of journalists, photographic or writy sort. I have worked alongside them in many spheres and in my opinion most fucking LOVE a tragedy. On 9/11 the glee in the newsroom was tangible, they were visualising their showreels every second as it unfolded. It made me feel physically sick.

Didn't the Manic STreet Preachers do a song called Kevin Carter? Just googled the lyrics:

Hi Time Magazine Hi Pulitzer Prize
Tribal scars in Technicolor
Bang bang club AK 47 hour

Kevin Carter

Hi Time Magazine Hi Pulitzer Prize
Vulture stalked white piped lie forever
Wasted your life in black and white

Kevin Carter x3

The elephant is so ugly he sleeps his head
Machetes his bed Kevin Carter Kaffir lover forever
Click click click click click
Click himself under

Kevin Carter x3

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Harsh, sharp lyrics, thanks for finding them.

Funny, I find myself now trying to be kind about this man. I have a friend who thinks that in terms of psychic energy terms I don't have a base chakra (base chakra apparently equates to raw predatory energy, survival, the killing instinct et) I like the guy too much to disenchant him. 'You're human,' he protests, 'Come down here and be human like the rest of us.' And I wonder which one he would call human, the girl or Kevin, so disconnected from each other. Black, female, infant, poor, powerless, observed, White, male, adult, rich, powerful, observer. Hard to believe they are even the same species.

[load-of-flannel.livejournal.com]

Theres always been amassive debate about the appropriate distance to keep in Photo Journalism. Its a real problem which confronmts many sucgh journalists daily, some cope by complete detachment, others suffer depression, some people manage a happy medium, some get drawn in and end up working for aid organisations.

On the one hand theres the fact that these photographs are instrumental in raising awarness of an issue that only can be dealt with by worldwide outcry and intervention. Someone needs to photograph to show people it happened.

On the other hand theres the fact that if a photojournalist interfered with every case he could possibly help with then there would be very little time for the journalism.

Whats a more terrifying thought is how many other versions of this or similar pictures he saw every single day he was there.

I don't know whether he intevened in other cases or not, but the spotlights been turned on a single incident here. I'm not sure that he could cope with the detachment neccessary to perform this role very well.

Its a Sad story in any case.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

It is very sad, and maybe I'm being too harsh. I keep swinging backwards and forwards on this one.

[bytepilot.livejournal.com]

To step forward and save one life, or to stand unmoving (yet not unmoved) in the hope that I might shout the louder and save many lives.

One is small and immediate, one is large and distant.

I stand poised between two deaths, and close both my eyes.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Could he not take the picture and save her life then?

Too painful to think about for long.

[bytepilot.livejournal.com]

Yeah,

Icky situation to be in.