Pulitzer Prize Photographer Kevin Carter and "The Vulture and the Little Girl"
Photo by Kevin Carter. Used here as Fair Use under Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act.
It's one of the most haunting images of the 20th Century, and one of the most controversial, too.
Kevin Carter's The Vulture and the Little Girl drew an immediate response from the world when it was first published in the New York Times on March 26, 1993.
The image was intended to draw attention to the plight of Sudanese people, who were struggling through civil war, drought, and famine.
But unintended consequences - like a public outrage that Carter took a photo of this girl, rather than helping her - brought up serious ethical questions about if, when, and how photojournalists should intervene in the events they photograph.
This is the story behind the photo.
OCHA [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
During its colonization by Britain, industrialization efforts were purposefully slowed down to keep the people of Sudan reliant on the Crown.
That led to decades of extreme poverty, economic struggle, and civil war, which was later exacerbated by famine.
In response, the United Nations established food centers throughout the country to help hunger relief efforts.
To shed light on the situation in Sudan, Operation Lifeline Sudan extended invitations to photojournalists to come to the country to document the conditions in which its people were living.
Carter traveled to Sudan as part of the operation.
After photographing the village of Ayod, he went into the countryside with his camera, where he heard whimpering.
Upon investigation, he discovered the starving little girl, collapsed on the ground from hunger.
The girl was crawling toward a U.N. feeding center when she was no longer able to move any further.
For Carter, it represented a moment of opportunity and pain.
Carter and other photojournalists had been advised not to touch victims of the famine due to disease, so he couldn't help the child.
Instead, he spent 20 minutes photographing her in the hopes of capturing a photo that could shed light on the problems in Sudan.
As Carter took the girl's photo, a vulture landed in the background, an ominous figure that seems to be stalking the starving child.
That's when Carter snapped the photo.
He waited for the vulture to open its wings - an even more ominous sight - but the bird never obliged.
Eventually, Carter chased the bird away and watched as the girl mustered the strength to continue crawling toward the feeding center.
As difficult as it is to view the image, it served an important purpose - it brought to light on a very large scale the extent of poverty and famine in Sudan.
When you look closer at the image, though, its power to trigger an emotion is even more salient.
The scene is a barren wasteland, with no crops, no water, and no signs of human civilization, which amplifies the feeling that it was a true life-or-death situation for people living there.
The angle from which Carter shot the photo is also important.
The manner in which the little girl and the vulture are positioned in the shot makes the vulture seem much larger than the girl, even if it wasn't in reality. The fact that the bird is so much darker than the background make it an even more ominous figure in the shot.
Together, these factors give the photo a sense of urgency that helped draw attention to the need for additional aid for the people of Sudan.
Kevin Carter (right). By Ilagardien (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Carter faced backlash after his image was published because he didn't help the girl get to the U.N. feeding station.
And though the child (who was actually a little boy named Kong Nyong) made it to the feeding station and survived another 14 years, the memories of the death, destruction, and pain that Carter saw in Sudan proved to be too much.
Just three months after his image won the Pulitzer Prize, Carter committed suicide at the age of 33.
In life, Carter wanted his photographs to tell as story, to bring attention to the struggles of society. After he died, The Vulture and the Little Girl gained even more attention, becoming a rallying cry for the world to take action to solve the problems that bring so much death and pain to humanity.
Via James Madison University, TIME, and Wikipedia