Kevin Carter

Ariana Hernandez

12/17

 Kevin Carter

Photojournalist are visual story tellers. The photographs they take impact numerous people in different ways. Photojournalist witness events that anyone can ever imagine happening. They are very passionate about their work because they are determined to bring awareness to others. Kevin Carter was also a photojournalist. However, he ended his life over a photograph.

Carter was born on September 13, 1960. Kevin Carter was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. Carter grew up in a middle-class. His neighborhood only consisted of white families. As grew older, he frequently saw riots of police officers arresting blacks who were undocumented living in the area. Kevin Carter questioned how his parents about the segregation that kept occurring. Carter dropped out of his studies in college to become a pharmacist and later, was drafted into the army. He was in Air Force  for four years. In 1980, he witnessed a black waiter being insulted. Carter was the only person who defended the man. The black man was badly beaten up by the other people who serve food. Kevin decided to serve out the rest of his required military service. He experienced the Church Street bombing in Pretoria in 1983, that was when Kevin Carter decided to become a news photographer.

Carter had began to work as a weekend sports photographer in 1983. In 1984, he started to work for the Johannesburg Star, he wanted to show others the brutality of segregation and discrimination. Kevin Carter was the first to photograph a public execution "necklacing" by black Africans in South Africa in the mid-1980s. Kevin Carter was member of the Bang Bang Club during the early 1900's. In March 1993, he was on a trip to Sudan. Carter was preparing to photograph a starving child trying to reach a feeding center when a vulture landed near to the child. Carter took the picture because it was his job. He was told not to touch the children because it can transmit disease. The photograph was sold to the New York Times and it first appeared on 26 March 1993. Multiple newspapers around the world also published the photograph.  Many people contacted the newspapers to ask what happened to the starving child. The paper reported that it was unknown if she had reached the feeding center. In April 1994, the photograph of a famine victim in Sudan won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography. Three months after winning the Pulitzer Prize, he committed suicide.

The St. Petersburg Times in Florida said this about Carter: "The 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." Kevin Carter had a huge impact on two different groups of people. There was one group who understood he was just doing his job and he could not get near the child due to the spread of disease. Then, there's a group of people who thinks he is the worst man ever for not helping the little girl. Carter estimated that there were at least twenty people dying at the food center per hour, he knew starvation was the number one death in Sudan. But other people did not seem to notice that. Hundreds and hundreds of people had a lot of questions for Carter. Carter committed suicide at the age of 33, there again was two groups of people. One group who was upset of his death because it was a great picture with no bad intentions. Another group, who was happy he was dead because he was another vulture in the scene.

Carter expressed regret because he had not done anything to help the girl, although there was not much he could have done. One picture ended Kevin Carter's life. His body was found in Parkmore near the Field and Study Center, where he used to play at as a child. Kevin Carter will always be a memorable photojournalist.

Sources:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Carter#Early_life

http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/photography/articles/2845/title/kevin-carter-consequences-photojournalism 

http://www.africansuccess.org/visuFiche.php?lang=en&id=1029