Re: NY Post Runs Cover Photo of Man About to Die

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In the book "The Bang-Bang Club : Snapshots from a Hidden War", there is no a full/real version of the history, Kevin appears to change it as the questions starting to annoying him as he have to fight back the criticism.
 
Here is one part of the book that talk about it, I don't know if it ok to publish it, it just a extract, I have it but in portuguese.
 
"During that time, Nancy Lee again asked him about the picture. He talked about how he had worked the situation, walked all around the child, working the scene from different angles. What he had really wanted was for that bird to flap its wings, he said. He was describing it to her in a macho way - all Nancy could think was it was the kind of situation where most people would snap a few pictures but then see what they could do for the child.
 
?There was something cold in the calculated way in which he was waiting for the bird?s wings to flap, for heaven?s sake,? Nancy Lee said. ?I was a little surprised by that, but as time went on, I heard him telling the story to other people. It metamorphosed into: he took the picture and sat down under a tree and cried, and that he felt he could not go back to that feeding-centre. He had just come from there and everyone was screaming in hunger and there was nothing he could do to help them and he just could not even bear to take her there. But he was sure she made it to the feeding-centre because he could not hear the screams of hunger any more.? It was an illogical explanation, but Kevin was trying to find a story that he felt comfortable in telling, that was comfortable to hear.
 
The first version of the story which Joao had heard from Kevin - in Sudan just minutes after he had taken the picture - did indeed mention that he had chased the vulture away. But he had not mentioned the child getting up and walking towards the feeding-centre. He had sat under a tree and wept. Joao remembered how he mentioned Megan and that all he could think of was holding her. Kevin had told a little more to his friend and confidant, Reedwaan, immediately on his return from Sudan, except to Reedwaan he said that, while he was framing and shooting the picture, the thought was going through his mind, ?Should I chase the bird away?? One part of him said chase it away, but another said, ?Just shoot, you?re here to work.? He told Reedwaan that he did try to shoo the bird away after he had finished taking pictures, but that it wouldn?t go far away and he just couldn?t deal with it, so he walked away and started crying.
 
It was only really once the questions began that Kevin elaborated on the incident. In response to readers? letters to The New York Times, Kevin told the editors, ?that she recovered enough to resume her trek after the vulture was chased away?. That was fourteen months before he was to collect the prize in New York.
 
In an interview with American Photo Magazine, Kevin said that he had come upon the chilling scene after wandering alone for two days in the desert, ?freaked out and sunburnt?, as he attempted to cope with the tragic situation he had been covering. ?There were hundreds of children starving like that and worse, you just meander from one horror to the next.? In answer to what he did after taking the picture, he said, ?I walked away, damnit!? still upset by ?the horrible pornography? of the death and destruction he had witnessed.
 
But whatever Kevin felt he had to say to combat criticism about his not helping the child, I - and some of his friends - felt that the picture was something that he had done which he hoped would be free of the negative sides of his personality and character. It was an escape from his perception of himself as a failure. It was a pure moment when he shone, a moment of perfection. But the picture was not free of him - the questions were always there, and it gnawed at him. Kevin stated, in American Photo, ?This is my most successful image after ten years of taking pictures, but I do not want to hang it on my wall. I hate it.? "
 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2012 10:55 PM
Subject: Re: NY Post Runs Cover Photo of Man About to Die

According to the witness reports I just read, the children were with their mothers who were approaching a food distribution site that had just opened up.  The children were left slightly behind while the mothers went to get the food.  The vulture was about 20 meters away and looks closer due to using a telephoto lens.  Carter chased the bird away after the shot, but it's not a given that the vulture was actually stalking the child since they are generally in the area anyway.  

  -yoram


On Dec 4, 2012, at 7:31 PM, Mauricio Montel wrote:

I remember the Kevin Carter history, he won the Pulitzer in 1994 with the photograph of a vulture that appeared to be stalking a starving child, and everyone asked what he did, if he scare the bird away...


Carter committed suicide in same year he won the prize.


Mauricio

John Palcewski <palcewski@xxxxxxxxx> escreveu:

New York is abuzz over the Post's front page photo of a man on a subway track about to be run over.    The photographer claims that he was using his camera flash in an attempt to alert the subway train's conductor, to save the guy, actually.   
 
The big question is:  what would YOU do if you were on that platform, with your camera, and had only about ten seconds to respond?  
 
 
 


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