The life and death of Kevin Carter
A good friend sent me a copy of a 1994 article from Time magazine on Bang Bang Club photographer Kevin Carter. It stirred a lot of memories. As a student at Wits during South Africa’s transition years, the Weekly Mail was an essential part of the meagre budget, which had to stretch to enough draught at the Bozz to kill an ox, and Senate House coffee strong enough to revive it again. Many of my memories of that era aren’t memories at all. They’re Kevin Carter’s photographs.
The story quotes James Nachtwey, who would go on to shoot a series, entitled Shattered, published in Time on 12 September 2001. They, in turn, form some of the most striking “memories” I have of 9/11.
Carter won a Pulitzer Prize for the photo above. Taken in the Sudan and published in the New York Times on 26 March 1993, it sparked considerable soul-searching about what it meant to be a reporter, to be objective, to observe rather than engage, to show the world rather than intervene. This distressing photograph and the painful questions it raised may well have led, in many ways directly, to Carter’s death by suicide on 27 July 1994. Rest in peace, Kevin. You meant a lot to those who only ever knew you through the images you framed.
Here is a selection of photographs by Carter and the other members of the Bang Bang Club, Greg Marinovich, Joao Silva, and the late Ken Oosterbroek.
Fascinating reminder of this wonderful journalist and his cohorts in the Bang Bang Club.
There is something I always wondered about the horrific photo of the burning alive of Lindsaye Tshabalala: was the guy cleaving his skull with a panga just another killer in the mob, or was his act merciful, that of putting him out of his agony?
And what ever happened to the National Peacekeeping Force?
The NPKF was a well-intended but short-lived disaster. It was ineffective, perceived by some groups (like Inkatha) to be biased, and after its failure in the East Rand townships — where Ken Oosterbroek was killed — it was disbanded. Members returned to their original commands.
what an evil man..how can a human with a heart do such thing!! take a photo of child whos almost gonna die and then go away, i dont call him a human,really i dont, if he would have a heart . he wouldnt do such thing,, saving lifes is more important then JUST TAKING PHOTOOS..he killed himself cuz he felt sorry for the boy on the photo, okay that means he has a bitof heart.but still he was evil by letting the boy theree just for a price, just for a price a little child suffered..i dont call this good, its badbadbad, evil man, i dont think hes resting in peace, im serious, i really feel badfor that child with the big bird behind him, evil man!
Think again. Think of how many children that photo saved by raising awareness and therefore funds for the famine in Sudan. That photo got published on the front page of the New York Times. The whole reason he was in Sudan in the first place was to try raise awareness and donations for the aid organisations operating in Sudan, which he did with blistering success.
By the way, the child was a girl not a boy, and do you think he could have saved all the other thousands of starving children around him too?
And tell me mr/ms high and mighty.. what have you ever personally done to help save starving children?
I agree, cv. There was just so much wrong with …’s comment that I didn’t know where to start. Besides, I appreciate the courtesy of proper punctuation.
There are many good reasons to draw a firm line and say don’t ever get involved as a journalist.
Being involved biases your coverage, which does everyone a disservice. Your job is to observe and report, not to get involved.
Besides the fact that it compromises your position vis-a-vis your readers, interfering in a situation makes a journalist a fair target for the belligerents in a war. Journalists are usually (though increasingly seldom, these days) accorded special respect and immunity in a war zone. However, that courtesy to protect their safety depends entirely on their impartiality and non-interference.
Most importantly, perhaps, is the psychological reason for not getting involved. Breaking this rule means you can’t erect the psychological defence necessary to seek out, observe and report so much of the world’s ills. It’s hard enough on war photographers as it is. Their job would be well-nigh impossible if they were always torturing themselves about what they could or couldn’t have done about what they see.
All of these are strong arguments for setting a hard rule that a journalist’s job is to observe, not to interfere.
The psychological defence, in my opinion, is the strongest argument why a journalist should not get involved with the story they are covering, even if that is a tough decision to make in itself. Now this may be a debatable point, but as it was, the psychological defence wasn’t strong enough for Carter. To call him evil for it is just callous.
As far as I know the girl in the photo, who was crawling to a feeding centre, did survive. For that day, at least. Nothing is known about her ultimate fate. Reportedly, Carter did chase away the vulture after taking the photograph. But my views would be the same had she died, and had he done nothing. I may have chosen differently, had I been there. I don’t know. If I had, a strong argument could be made that it would have been the wrong choice. But I would not presume to make such a complex and painful moral decision for someone else. And certainly not in such an arrogant, judgemental, sanctimonious and ultimately simplistic tone.
I still cringe whenever i see this picture, and the idea in defence of not interfering as a journalist is complete rubbish. Any seasoned war correspondent will tell you there are certain situations where your obligation to your fellow human being transcends such ethics, one thing i do know had kevin had a second chance he would have done things differently. The poor child was on her way to a feeding station but did not have the strength to make it, how anyone with an ounce of humanity in them can justify walking away is beyond me.
As far as I know, the girl did make it to the feeding station, and Carter did shoo away the vulture. Dan Kraus, who made a short film about Carter, spoke to reporters about it:
Message to all contributors to date:
I can only imagine the emotions that ravaged Kevin Carter when he took this picture. And thereafter. Had Carter not taken the picture, the world would not have known what was happening. How many lives would that have cost?
I do not presume to know what I would have done had I encountered the scene that Carter did when he captured this image, but it remains important that the world saw what he observed. The fact that we are still debating it 15 years later should not be wasted on the feeble-minded.
Having seen Carter’s insight and compassion now, I cannot help but feel that his passing was a loss. And the world is a lesser place without him. RIP Kevin Carter.
Athol
Before someone criticizes Kevin, unglue your ass from the chair you are sitting in and go do something for somebody else.
First of all, vultures don’t eat living things, they eat carrion. So the purpose of this photo is merely iconic.
Second of all, speaking as a photojournalist, when you are out there taking pictures, you are just taking pictures, that’s your job, that’s your help. If you don’t take the photo, no one will ever know what was happening and the story will remain the same forever. I know that because I chose to be in both sides once and the result was… I did none of the things right.
Kevin risked his life many times and through his pictures (so as Greg, Ken and Joao and many others) he helped many people. After that picture, people around the world knew what was happening in Sudan.
So before you criticize Kevin, think of what you are doing.
Third, when you criticize Kevin, you are just showing your own misery, cause it’s easier to be sitting there and babbling than doing something real for a change. The picture is a slap on your face. The picture show how inhumane and selfish we are. If that picture wouldn’t exist your conscience would be quite clean, but it exists… so your conscience is telling you things you don’t want to hear and then…you take it on the photographer.
Fourth. The money? Give me a break. There are tons of things you can do without risking your life and your mental health for the money. And you will be better paid for sure.
And last,
The place was full of people, why is that everyone takes it on Kevin. Let’s go back to the slap in the face-conscience thing.
It is a really stupid argument, that only a photo of a vulture eating a child, would have an effect, whereas any help the reporter would have given, would have caused the report lost it’s effectivity. Do you need to see that, to do what? Really, I don’t trust any of these “just showing reality supporters” that for them it makes a big difference. If you can’t feel anything anymore for a starving child, or victims in a war zone, or if somebody tells what happens, then you won’t change anything when it gets a little more grizzly.
Excuse me, but to those who so vehemently criticize Carter for taking this particular picture, I ask: in what specific, effective way, could he have helped the Girl, if indeed she was already serviced by the feeding station, and after driving the vulture away? I mean, all this mean-spirited, and indeed needlessly sanctimonious and arrogant bashing fails, in my opinion, to posit a clear alternative to what Carter had done.
My only point of criticism is this: why must he had to wait 20 minutes, acccording to his own testimony, to take to photo, and for the vulture to spread his wings and leave the scene.
I assume that taking the picture in an effective way demanded some spending of time - but 20 minutes?! Kevin was a war photojournalist - wasn’t he seasoned in taking effective pictures quickly and under far harder circumstances?
Perhaps helping the child reach a shaded spot after chasing the vulture away was the appropriate thing to be done after taking the picture. I can safely assume that had I time to do so, I would. Walking away from the scene was not the right thing to do after the pictures were taken. In this regard, Kevin’s behaviour was not as justified, even if considered under the complexity of the situation and his own profession.
However, certain moral decisions such as helping a dehydrated person receive some water, even only as a momentary respite, or bringing a helpless child to the shade, and then leaving the scene - are not, and cannot, be overridden by the complexity of the situation.
Kevin was not taking that picture under a situation of combat or war, where the ability to do anything for a person in dire straits is indeed so slight, as to be of disservice to their deaths and the situation it immortalizes. But this was not. And so, I deem that gaze of his of the girl crawling her way to the shade, as an act of moral stupefaction and insensitivity. However, he was perfectly ethical in taking the picture. He could not have fed the girl, was not knowledgeable in taking care of famine victims, was not able to remain in the site for much longer, and would betray his work had he let his momentary attachment to override his mission to document a collective plight, not an individual one.
However jaded and dumbfounded he was by the inconceivable magnitude of cosmic and human misery the situation brought face to face with, however near to breaking point and utterly tormented while taking this pictures, and others in the area, he should have helped the child in the only way he could: not look at her crawl toward the shade, but helping her reach her point in safety, and then huddle under a tree, smoke a cigarette and cry.