please log in to view this image In March 1993, photographer Kevin Carter made a trip to southern Sudan, where he took now iconic photo of a vulture preying upon an emaciated Sudanese toddler near the village of Ayod. Carter said he waited about 20 minutes, hoping that the vulture would spread its wings. It didnât. Carter snapped the haunting photograph and chased the vulture away. (The parents of the girl were busy taking food from the same UN plane Carter took to Ayod). The photograph was sold to The New York Times where it appeared for the first time on March 26, 1993 as âmetaphor for Africaâs despairâ. Practically overnight hundreds of people contacted the newspaper to ask whether the child had survived, leading the newspaper to run an unusual special editorâs note saying the girl had enough strength to walk away from the vulture, but that her ultimate fate was unknown. Journalists in the Sudan were told not to touch the famine victims, because of the risk of transmitting disease, but Carter came under criticism for not helping the girl. âThe man adjusting his lens to take just the right frame of her suffering might just as well be a predator, another vulture on the scene,â read one editorial. Carter eventually won the Pulitzer Prize for this photo, but he couldnât enjoy it. âIâm really, really sorry I didnât pick the child up,â he confided in a friend. Consumed with the violence heâd witnessed, and haunted by the questions as to the little girlâs fate, he committed suicide three months later.
I didn't realise till now it's this Kevin Carter that the Manic Street Preachers were singing about. Just looked it up.
Really? Never knew that either. That image is haunting and the story sums up all that is wrong with humanity on all levels.
Good Thread The Tank Man please log in to view this image Often considered the most iconic photograph in history, ‘tank man’ or ‘the unknown rebel’ shows an act of courage and defiance and earned the anonymous man widespread fame. It took place during the protests at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on June 5, 1989, and has subsequently become a symbol of the end of the Cold War era, and one of the most famous photographs of the 20th century. Four people claim to have took photos of the event, but the most reproduced image, and the most famous was by Jeff Widener.
You gotta love a good napalm party. Anyone for lynching? please log in to view this image Lawrence Beitler took this iconic photograph on August 7, 1930, showing the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith. It sold thousands of copies, which Beitler stayed up for 10 days and nights printing them. It has become iconic over the years as it is one of the best and most recognisable images of lynching which at the time was commonplace, but now serves only as a reminder of the pre-Civil Rights era. The photo shows a crowd that have turned out to view the lynching, and the audience a mixture of anger and fulfillment. The photo was so popular it has been the inspiration for many poems and songs down the years.
This is a classic Uganda please log in to view this image This example of emotive imagery is of child in Uganda holding hands with a missionary. The stark contrast between the two people serves as a reminder of the gulf in wealth between developed and developing countries. Mike Wells, the photographer, took this picture to show the extent of starvation in Africa. He took it for a magazine, and when they went 5 months without printing it, he decided to enter it into a competition. However, Wells has stated that he is against winning a compeition with a picture of a starving boy.
It eventually turned out that this one was staged and extra smoke added (and a watch removed from the soldier's wrist in case it implied looting) but this one should be especially poignant for anyone who completed Call of Duty: World at War single player campaign please log in to view this image Edit: this is the un-doctored one with both the compass and watch on the guy's wrists.
