blackest Loc: Ireland

http://rarehistoricalphotos.com/vulture-little-girl/
linked from the page above the photo by the late kevin carter ...


It's Heartbreaking...

SharpShooter Loc: NorCal

It's not only heartbreaking, it's double heartbreaking!
As most might know, true to his journalistic roots, Carter did not interfere with the struggle and let nature take its course. The little boy did not make it to the camp and we assume the vulture got its meal!
Carter was so haunted by that event, and this is where the double heartbreak comes in, carter could have taken the little boy to the camp but did not interfere. His action, or non-actions so haunted Cater that he later committed suicide over it. The guilt of having done his job correctly as a journalist was to heavy of a burden for him to carry. Carter took THAT subject to a premature grave!
blackest, thanks for posting that photo!!!
SS

repleo Loc: Boston

SS - I know you are a decent person and didn't mean this the way it reads. No 'job' or calling justifies allowing a fellow human being to die like this. Apparently Carter came to the same conclusion.
We should all be haunted and shamed by this image.

neilds37 Loc: Port Angeles, WA

To follow that non-interference "rule" is shameful when dealing with wildlife. To apply it to a human being is unthinkable.

Darkroom317 Loc: Mishawaka, IN

Nick Ut when faced with a girl running away from a naplam attack with her clothes and skin burning, quickly took the photograph and then helped get her to the hospital. When I was in media ethics and as the photo editor for the paper in college this was the approach that I put forward as a compromise between not interfering in the documentation of an event and common human decency

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

True, but the real point here is that what Sharp Shooter posted is not true.

In fact Kevin Carter by all accounts acted quite normally. He took many pictures of the many starving children. Not one, many. He had arrived on an airplane loaded with food. Starving children were all around, but their parents (certainly including the parent of the girl in that picture) were busy unloading food for distribution. The child was in no way trying to reach a distribution point. Nor is there any reason to believe the child did not survive, any more than to believe that none of the children survived (we actually don't know). But we do know, from all accounts, that the vulture was at least 10 meters from the child and was never close to it.

A famine in the Sudan would certainly have been a devastating experience, and probably did influence Kevin Carter's suicide. But it would not have been the only reason, and it certainly was not because he failed to assist that child or any of the other children that were starving.

Incidentally, Carter was criticized because the photograph, quite purposely, suggests that the vulture was after the child. It only appears that way. Thus the impact of the photograph is faked.

blackest Loc: Ireland

As are her clearly visible ribs and malnourished appearance clearly done in Photoshop after kevin got the shots they went to McDonalds for Tea. Unbelievable, clearly floyd you are defective, your lack of humanity is appalling. Consider yourself blocked.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

My apologies for writing what you cannot read. Or are unwilling to read.

The child was never in danger from the vulture. In that sense, and only in that sense, the drama of the image is fake. The drama in the fake stories written about it, such as the claim that the child was trying to get to a food distribution center, are not from the image but from people who want to see what is not there.

Look it up. Kevin Carter didn't tell the story you are fabricating. Neither did João Silva, another photojournalist who accompanied Carter on that trip.

neilds37 Loc: Port Angeles, WA

Clearly, one of the stories is fabricated. In any case, looking at the ground straw near child and vulture, I find it difficult to believe the vulture was over 90 feet away, even with a telephoto lens foreshortening distance. I don't see where the number of starving children has anything to do with justifying not doing anything to possibly save one poor, miserable child. Where did SS get the information the child did not make it, and where did you get the information it's fate is unknown?

neilds37 Loc: Port Angeles, WA

double post

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

Who said anything about 90 feet???

There was nothing he could do that he was not doing. He was on an airplane loaded with food. He was instructed not to touch children. The child's mother would have been just a few feet away, and there was no place where he could take that child that would help it in any way. The adults were unloading the supplies in order to distribute them, and for that short period only the children were unattended. The child was no more or less endangered than other children.

The statements about not knowing the exact fate of the child came from the NY Times editor, and are quoted in a zillion places on the Internet.

Do a Google search for information. There were any number of major writeups at the time, which are quoted or referenced in these two Wiki pages:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Carter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_vulture_and_the_little_girl

Another reference, from the tens of thousands:

http://www.snopes.com/photos/people/kevincarter.asp

Perhaps this has never been discussed on UHH before, and or that you personally had not known about it. But it isn't something new, and it has been widely discussed for decades.

blackest Loc: Ireland

neilds37 Loc: Port Angeles, WA

You said the vulture was 30 meters away. By my conversion tables that is over 90'. A meter is around 39". One yard is 3 feet (36"). 30 yards is 90 feet. 30 meters is over 90 feet.
Cheers,

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

Please read it again.

The number was 10 meters. It is also somewhat ambiguous in that different places state that as 10 meters from the girl to the vulture, other places state it as 10 meters from the photographer to the vulture.

Relatively, the exact distance is not important as everyone agrees the child was not actually in any danger from the vulture, and after taking the picture Carter did chase the vulture away.

neilds37 Loc: Port Angeles, WA

My error, and my apology. 10 meters was stated. I transferred 30 feet into 30 meters.
As for the rest of it, it always helps to all the information presented the first time around, rather than turning the cards over one at a time as the game progresses.