Review on Picture Exercise (Kevin Carter)

Review For Picture Exercise - Kevin Carter

(This is the picture we were told to review on)

There is a little girl in the photo, her arms are very thin and she seems to be suffering from malnutrition and is starving to death.

The photograph was taken by South African Journalist, Kevin Carter, while on assignment to Sudan. He took his own life a couple of months later due to depression.  Kevin Carter won the Pulitzer prize for a picture of a Sudanese girl being stalked by a vulture. That was the same year, Kevin Carter committed suicide. 

The photo was published in The New York Times in March of 1993, and sparked a wide reaction. People wanted to know what happened the child, and if Carter had assisted her. The Times issued a statement saying that the girl was able to make it to the food station, but beyond that no one knows what happened to her. Because of this, Carter was bombarded with questions about why he did not help the girl, and only used her to take a photograph. Even though there was not much he could do.

Actually, he was told not to touch the children for fear of transmitting disease. To get the girl and vulture in focus, he approached the scene very slowly so as not to scare the vulture away and took a photo from approximately 10 metres away. After taking some more good shots, he chased the bird away. People blamed him for not helping the girl. Everyone bombarded him on the internet. Eventually, he decided to commit suicide due to depression. Another reason for his suicide was because he saw too much evil in his life, as he had seen the depressing environments of famine and other disasters. 

Some said that “The parents of the children were busy taking food from the plane, so they had left their children only briefly while they collected the food.” While others claim that the vulture is waiting for the girl to die and to eat her. It knew she was going to die of starvation thus it was eyeing on her, waiting to eat her remains.

It shows the famine that existed in other countries. Living in a place like Singapore, we need not worry about not having food to eat. We will always have food on our table. Our economy is very good and food can be purchased right from supermarkets. It is very convenient. While in poorer and not well developed countries, some people have to worry about not having enough food to eat every single day. Most of them suffer from malnutrition. We may not be able to fully understand what famine is actually like but through this picture, we know that many people are suffering out there. 

I feel that we should cherish what we have now. People in the other countries do not even have enough food to fill their stomach everyday. We are fortunate enough to be born in Singapore. We should not complain too much, as compared to those in poorer and less developed countries, we are already living in bliss.

Acknowledgement(source):

http://rarehistoricalphotos.com/vulture-little-girl/