The heartbreaking truth behind the photo of vultures waiting to eat the baby

At the photo festival Rencontres d'Arles is taking place in France, Chilean artist Alfredo Jarr has exhibited a work called Silent Sounds.

A photo is too . heavy

This work is based on the legendary photo of Kevin Carter, the Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer in 1994. The audience will be allowed to enter a black room where the screen will show in silence a document that recounts the photographer's life. South Africa.

Under the blinking flash, the image of a skinny boy, collapsed on the ground because of hunger, beside a reanimated vulture. This is the picture that gave Carter the Pulitzer Prize in 1994 and . a suicide.

South African photographer Kevin Carter, 33, entered the history of world photography with this photo. For many years working as a photojournalist, especially as a member of the Bang-Bang club, an association of four photographers wanting to document South Africa's transition, Carter's lens has been associated with the activities of the poor.

In March 1993, along with Joao Silva, a member of the Bang-Bang club, Carter went to Sudan to investigate the civil war and famine. On the way to the village of Ayod, photographer Carter caught a skinny child with bones on his way to the food supply station. Suddenly, a vulture came to stand behind. Suddenly, Carter was deeply moved by the scene of extreme poverty, he lifted the camera and took it.

Kevin Carter's Pulitzer Prize-winning photo

Carter stood there, waiting for 20 minutes, hoping the vulture would fly away, spread its wings to get a heavier, but in vain picture. Carter chased away the vulture and ran for two miles, running while wiping his tears.

When he met his friend Joao Silva, Carter was deeply moved. Twenty years later, Silva recounted: "He was clearly distraught when he explained to me what he had taken, he said relentlessly and pointed his finger in the air. He talked about his daughter Megan. and wanting to hug her in his arms. Carter was certainly affected by the image he took and it haunted him until the end of his life. "

On March 26, 1993, the New York Times published the picture and it had an immediate impact. The editorial office then received many letters from readers asking to know the fate of the child in the picture. The New York Times posted an editorial a few days later to announce that the child might have entered the relief center but was not sure if he was saved.

A year after the photo was published, on April 12, 1994, New York Times photo editor Nancy Buirski called Kenvin Carter to report that he had won a Pulitzer Prize with this photo. This prestigious award gives Carter a whirlwind of harsh criticism. Most people focus on the morals of photographers in such a situation."A man who does not give up his goal to help others in a tribulation can only be a carnivore, a vulture on the scene," wrote St Petersburg Times, wondering why Carter Do not help the kid in the photo.

Justice is late

In 2011, Alberto Rojas, a photojournalist for El Mundo, the Spanish daily, went on a business trip to Ayod. Obsessed by the vulture picture, he began searching for information about it. Rojas found only articles criticizing Kevin Carter for not saving the child but nowhere with evidence of that. Rojas decided to investigate to find justice.

Rojas started by talking to his friend, Spanish photographer José Luis Maria Arenzana, who was also in the Ayod refugee camp in 1993. His testimony is an important milestone. the turning point in Rojas's research. Arenzana also took a similar picture. In the picture of Arenzana, the baby is not only alone, it is only a few meters from the care center, next to the father and the medical staff.

That picture gave Rojas hope, apparently the emergence of humanitarian organizations was a good information for the baby. "The baby may have survived the famine, the vulture and the words of Western readers," Rojas said. Rojas continued to investigate by reaching out to the medical staff, doctors in the doctor's organization without borders working at Ayod at the time. After that, Rojas returned to the scene.

After the meetings, Rojas met the child's father in a photo of Kevin Carter. Unexpectedly, in the Ayod village, no one ever saw this picture and knew that his village was famous all over the world. The appearance of vultures, a bad omen compared to Westerners, is very normal here, so many vultures cannot count. And another unexpected news, the baby actually survived the famine but died 14 years later because of a malaria attack.

Thanks to Alberto Rojas, we now know that the boy in the picture does not starve, is not abandoned to become a scavenger, making meals for vultures as readers have "predicted". Justice has been done. But Kevin Carter was no longer to receive that news. You died after three months of receiving the Pulitzer Prize.

"Persistent memories of murders and corpses" haunted this photographer every moment. There is not a bit of glory, no hope, no joy. The glory of the Pulitzer Prize also did not help a Sudanese child to help the raptors become famous but made a talented photographer find his own death. Media has become a vulture for Kevin Carter, a real, alone, real world child.

A paradox so far everyone has to acknowledge: This photo is worth much more than demonstrations or battles. And, Kevin's death is a lesson for the whole world.

The death and welding scene of the photographer

A few months after receiving the noble award, Kevin Carter was found dead by gas police in his car. In the suicide note, he wrote: "I completely broke down, no phone, no rent, no child support, no money to repay . I was obsessed with the memories that felt palpable for death. , corpses, rage and pain . about starving children . about crazy men, often executioners . ".