“The best thing about a picture is that it never changes, even when the people in it do.” ~ ANDY WARHOL
IN FOCUS - THE ART OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Click! Click! Click! That’s what we hear nowadays more than any other sound. Starting from infants to the eldest in the room, the photo-clicking mania has seemed to get a hold of everyone. But who can we blame? A photograph is the only way which enables the Homo sapiens to capture every single moment of their life; freeze time and preserve all their favorite and sometimes not-so-favorite memories. Though there have been times when many have been called out for clicking unwanted pictures at unwanted times, that does not mean that photography is just a waste of time. Real photography is more than just a click of a button; it is a peculiar art form that goes far beyond simple documentation and explores the domains of emotion, narrative, and perception.
Each photograph taken by a photographer offers its viewers a unique perspective of the world around us seen through the eyes of the photographer. A photograph is known to ignite feelings and stimulate the minds of its viewer. But how many times have you heard of the fact that a simple photograph has been the cause of death of its owner? Well, today in this article I shall bring in front of you the story of a man whose life was destroyed by a simple photograph clicked by none other than himself. This is the story of Kevin Carter, a South African photographer and a winner of the honorary Pulitzer Prize who ended his own life all thanks to a not-so-simple photograph.
THAT’S WHERE IT ALL STARTED
Kevin Carter was born in 1960 in Johannesburg, South Africa. He reached adulthood amid heated debates about the racial apartheid regime. However, as a white South African, he enjoyed privileges under apartheid. Carter observed indications of racism in his modern Catholic household. There were occurrences of various police raids in relation to arresting black people in his neighborhood, but however, Carter’s parents chose to remain silent about the situation, which was often questioned by Carter. After finishing his high school education, Carter had to fulfill obligatory military service by enrolling in the Air Force. Whilst serving in the Air Force, Carter was found protecting a black waiter from sheer discrimination in the year 1980, which had him receiving severe beatings from his fellow troops. This incident had Carter go AWOL from the Air Force due to both his physical and spiritual breakdown.
During the period of AWOL, Carter again thought of embarking on a fresh start by becoming a disc-jockey known as Dave. But, unfortunately, the entire DJ thing did not unfold as expected and Carter ultimately went back to the Air Force to finish his military obligation. Then, in 1983, Carter bore witness to the famous Church Street bombing, and this event certainly led Carter to begin his career in photojournalism with the intention of changing the world for the better.
WHEN PHOTOGRAPHY BECAME THE GREATEST WEAPON
Kevin honed his skills by first reporting on weekend sports and then gradually started pursuing profound change. This reform was aligned with the South African political transition of that time. Between the period of 1984 and 1994, Kevin worked for the Johannesburg Star Newspaper. During the ‘80s and mid ‘90s, Carter had multiple run-ins with the law. He was seen shooting various protests, funerals, and even conflicts between police and anti-apartheid undertakings. He started documenting each and every battle in South Africa as the state began shattering the shackles of apartheid and advancing with begrudging steps towards democracy. Carter’s entire journalism career was shaped by these photographs. In the not-toodistant future, Carter was able to become a notable “conflict journalist”. In fact, between the period of 1884 and 1990, Kevin and his peers Greg Marinovich, Ken Oosterbroek, and Joao Silva emerged as the primary sources in South African communities in unrest. The continent of Africa is one not ever devoid of political, military, and economic tensions and disputes which eventually led these lads to visit other places. These 3 photographers were together recognized as-The Bang-Bang Club.
AND THE QUESTS CONTINUED…
The early 90s saw a huge amount of political violence in South Africa for all the conflict journalists internationally. Carter, being an official photographer of Johannesburg, had a discerning vision and was found to be an attendant of fortunate timing and placement. Kevin was the first ever photographer to capture the public “necklace” implementation in the mid-1980s. This capture alone put Carter on the radar of international journalism.
In today’s time, it might not be a big thing as just one little Google search can provide any kind of haunting picture, but there existed a completely different scenario during the early 90s. Carter was even able to capture through his lens extreme white groups such as the Afrikaner Resistance Movement. He occasionally stepped in to halt things, such as when a black guy was being stoned in 1986. Carter observed more and more how photography may change people’s perceptions.
EVERY ACTION HAS A REACTION
During the month of March of the year 1994, Kevin clicked a picture of three Afrikaner neo-Nazi nationalists from the AWB (Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging) while they were being shot. Though Carter unfortunately ran dry on film in the middle of the shoot,, he was able to click enough pictures which were enough to get published on “nearly every front page in the world”, as said by The Guardian’s Eamonn McCabe. When Carter later looked back upon the photographs taken by him during his photojournalism career, he was seen stating, “I was appalled at what they were doing. But then people started talking about those pictures…. Then I felt that maybe my actions hadn’t been at all bad. Being a witness to something this horrible wasn’t necessarily such a bad thing to do.”
In the year of 2000, Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva, the contemporary combat photographers of Kevin, wrote The Bang-Bang Club: Snapshots from a Hidden War. These two were seen pondering upon the integrity of their chosen profession. In fact, Marinovich even wrote, him and the other members of Bang-Bang, “discovered that one of the strongest links among us was questions about the morality of what we do: when do you press the shutter, release, and when do you cease being a photographer?” However, Kevin Carter was seen struggling with that as he felt the horror of the sights that he captured with his camera which led to the success of his professional career came at an extremely high price.
THE IMMORTAL PHOTOGRAPH
In March 1993, Kevin was assigned duty in Sudan, and he traveled with his colleague Joao Silva. There, he captured a photograph of a child being sulked behind by a vulture. According to reports, the child was attempting to get to a feeding center of the United Nations which existed about a half-mile away in Ayod, Sudan (now known as South Sudan). This picture taken by Kevin was published for the first time in The New York Times on March 23, 1993. Accordingly, Kevin observed a boy who was suffering from some disease and was on the verge of dying and a vulture was pursuing the child during the civil war of the Sudanese in the year of 1994. Kevin achieved a lot of appraisals for the particular picture and even was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the same. The picture alone made him a kind of “celebrity” and he was quite a household name by then.
Kevin, during this period, was interviewed by various papers and channels. During one such interview, Carter was asked by somebody about the child’s fate, to which Kevin was seen replying that he didn’t wait to know about him as he had to catch a flight. After hearing the reply, the interviewer made a very startling response on the same and said, “Two vultures were stalking the child that day, one was a bird, and the other was holding the camera.” This statement totally stirred the soul of Kevin. Kevin eventually got depressed and killed himself two months later the incident.
WHAT IS THE RIGHT WAY TO EXPRESS AGONY?
Apparently, according to some sources, Kevin was not able to touch the boy as it was against the morality of the photojournalists to handle subjects during pandemics or wars due to the possibility of spreading diseases. Potentially, due to this very possible reason, Kevin waited for nearly 20 minutes after scaring the bird away, lighting a cigarette, praying, and crying. Kevin Carter committed suicide in the year of 1994 on the date of July 27. He was aged 33 years at the time of his death. He left a suicide note which read: “I’m really, really sorry. The pain of life overrides the joy to the point that joy does not exist. ... I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings
& corpses & anger & pain…. Of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners…”
Variable sources proclaimed that at first sight Kevin thought the boy to be a girl.
Moreover, this rumor was brought to a stop by the child’s father 17 years after Kevin’s death. The child’s father further stated that the boy was named Kong Nyong, and he definitely did not die from the disease which he was seen suffering in the picture, because the food aid station of the UN took good care of the child. Unfortunately, Kong died around the year of 2007, malaria being the cause of it.
WHAT IS JUSTIFIED AND WHAT IS NOT?
Though Kong’s death was unpreventable, the death of Kevin might have been a preventable one. The cause of Kevin’s death was his own guilty conscience. Maybe if Kevin had taken the necessary steps for the safety of the child by getting it to a refugee camp and attracted people’s attention to the child after crying and praying, maybe he would have felt less guilty and would not have let the guilt kill him. Maybe then he would have fought bravely with all the criticisms and would have been able to live a few more years.
Today, as we explore the life and legacy of Kevin Carter, let us embrace the unsettling truths that his pictures depict. Rather, we should use his pictures to motivate action, compassion and empathy, since we can only start to light the way toward a better future by facing the darkness. Bidding adieu to the words of Montana Dennis,
“By creating, we are literally bringing something into existence that didn’t exist before.”