Kevin Carter
Kevin Carter (born September 13, 1960 in Johannesburg ; † July 27, 1994 ibid) was a South African photojournalist . He was a member of the Bang-Bang Club .
His best-known work is the photo taken in March 1993, The vulture and the little girl , which shows a half-starved, small Sudanese child who appears to be watched by a vulture .
The photo of the starving child
Circumstances leading to its creation, according to Carter
As Carter photographed the situation, a vulture sat near the child, whom Carter thought was a girl. According to Carter, in order to get a better photo, he waited about 20 minutes for the vulture to spread its wings. But when this did not happen, he chased the bird away to protect the child. According to Carter, the child had regenerated enough that it could continue on its way.
Different description of the circumstances
The Portuguese photojournalist João Silva accompanied Carter to Sudan. In an interview with the Japanese journalist and author Akio Fujiwara - published in Fujiwara's book The Boy who Became a Postcard (Ehagaki ni Sareta Shōnen) - Silva describes the circumstances of the award-winning photo differently.
According to Silva, Carter and Silva were flown in by United Nations staff as part of Operation Lifeline Sudan . On March 11, 1993, they landed in southern Sudan . The UN told them they would be flying out in 30 minutes after the food they had brought was distributed. The photographers went on a search for motifs. UN workers began to distribute the grain and the women of the village came from their wooden huts to the plane. Silva went looking for guerrilla fighters, Carter stayed near the plane.
According to Silva, Carter was shocked that it was the first time he was confronted with a specific famine. So Carter took a lot of pictures of starving children. Silva also began to take pictures of children on the ground who looked as if they were crying. These images were not published. The parents were busy taking the groceries from the plane and only left their children briefly while the food was handed out to them. The child in Carter's photo was one of those children. A vulture landed behind the girl. To get a better picture of the two of them, Carter approached very carefully so as not to scare the vulture away, and took a picture from ten meters away. He pulled the trigger several more times, then the vulture flew away.
Years later, a Sudanese stated that the child he photographed was his son Kong Nyong. He survived the famine, but died a few years before his father testified.
Reactions
The picture went around the world after it was first published in the New York Times . Carter then won the Pulitzer Prize in 1994 . After the photo was published and awarded, Carter was accused of exploiting the situation for his own fame as a photographer.
Life
After the critical reviews of his photo, he turned away from photojournalism to work as a wildlife photographer. Only two months after the Pulitzer Prize Award Kevin Carter committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning in his car, which he had left his parents' house nearby, suicide . He left a seven year old daughter.
From his farewell letter:
“I'm really, really sorry,… The pain of life overrides the joy to the point that joy does not exist. … [I'm] 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. ”
“I am very, very sorry ... The pain of life exceeds joy to such an extent that joy no longer exists. … [I'm] depressed… without a phone… money for rent… money for alimony… money for debt… money !!! ... I have vivid memories of murders and corpses and anger and pain, ... of starving and wounded children, of trigger-happy lunatics - often police officers - of executors of killers ... I went to - if I'm lucky - with Ken * to be."
* Ken Oosterbroek , a photojournalist friend who was shot dead on April 18, 1994 (two days after the Pulitzer Prize was announced) during rioting in Thokoza near Johannesburg .
effect
The Manic Street Preachers recorded a song about Kevin Carter on their 1996 album Everything Must Go . The concept album Poets and Madmen of Savatage also based on the tragedy of Kevin Carter. The fictional story told in the booklet of young people who found Carter, believed to be dead, in an abandoned asylum, makes explicit reference to the photo.
In 2004 Dan Krauss made a short documentary film entitled The Death of Kevin Carter: Casualty of the Bang Bang Club , which was nominated for an Oscar in 2006.
The Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar created the installation The Sound of Silence in 2006 , which depicts the life and death of Kevin Carter in the form of a video projection.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ The boy who became a postcard. buletinpillar.org (Indonesian), accessed June 1, 2019
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Carter, Kevin |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | South African photojournalist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 13, 1960 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Johannesburg , South Africa |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 27, 1994 |
| Place of death | Johannesburg , South Africa |