Pulitzer Prize Winning Photo That Haunts Me

I am now back in college as an "older student" hoping to someday do humanitarian work, because things like this break my heart. I wanted to post my experiences at college with things like this...I am SHOCKED by the callousness of some of the people in my classes. During a discussion about world poverty, several students in just my class alone felt it was not our problem and that starving people was not an issue they cared about or felt we should even send aid for because it was a drain on our own country. When viewing photographs like this one (and many, many others on famine, genocide, etc), they make crude jokes, and wonder why people like me care. As a human being, I cannot imagine how one cannot be moved by the suffering of others...as a mom, I cannot imagine teaching my children that the suffering of others is not our problem...

maidenwolf:

Take heart. There are many in the world who do care...

Teach your children well.

I agree about him waiting 20 minutes to take the perfect shot, if there was any compassion he wouldn't have sat and waited for the "perfect" shot.....All photojournalist SET up their shots. These aren't "candid" moments....these people are paid for what emotions they can stir from you by looking at their pictures. One photojournalist let the cat outta the bag when he quoted "I always carry a Baby Shoe and a Ragged Teddy Bear with me on shoots. And if I need that little extra "ooommmph" for a photo, I throw the baby shoe and teddybear in the picture. Like a suicide bomber explodes outside a train station....I throw the show and teddy bear on the ground near all the rubble, and snap some shots....Its amazing what you can create with only a few props" in a Time Magazine article.

that should say it all.

Nice post Kensington.

That just goes to show that it is all about money. Not portraying the suffering, although it does show us that, but it just means a bigger wage packet for the photographer at the end of the day.

Sick really when you think about it.

I can assure you that that is not true of all photo-journalists. In fact a great many who hold their integrity very dear (not so hard when you don't have much else) would be highly offended by any accusation of "doctoring" a photo, especially the idea of adding their own props. Still, when you look at the really great Pulitzer-winning photos, they didn't need any extra "oomph", the stories were more than enough on their own.

However, when I was at school a local paper decided to run a story about students doing their final exams and contemplating "the future".

They took one boarding student and two of his "dayboy" mates. They then went to the other boarding house and put the three Year 12 students into a Year 10 "dorm" style room and photographed them. The caption and story then depicted tham as boarding students in their shared bedroom. A complete lie.

Personally, I would have thrown anything I could lay my hands on at the bird. As a photographer, I live to take photo's but as a father and a human being, I would not have been able to watch that girl crawl away. I know many will say that you cannot help one without helping them all, but for heaven's sake, one kilometer. One damned kilometer! Crawling on your hands and knees being followed by a beast weighing more than you, that probably had had more to eat that day than you would in three.

Disease? I would have risked it to get that girl to food.

I will never forget that picture or this thread.
I am learning a good lesson in human thinking.

After seeing this picture, and reading through all the posts, the first thought that came to mind is the parable about "The Good Samaritan" taught by Jesus Christ, in Luke 10:25-37.

Jesus replied and said, "A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho; and he fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him, and went off leaving him half dead. Jesus expounds on the law of love. Love is not merely a concept or feeling. True love is put into action.

In this parable, three people passed by this half-dead man, and two excused themselves why they would not help this man. (just as in the greivous case of this half dead child), Only one did something about it. If everyone showed this kind of love to the world, pictures like this would not exist. We all have the power of "choice." All of us, collectively, can change the world. It starts within, "us" and spreads, lest evil get the upper hand.

Just something to think about.

Originally posted by msnevil
Why didn't the photographer "Run and get help"? Even a lay person knows how to do that. The UN Relief zone would have trained personnel that could deal with the "infectious diseases.".

Okay, this was all said a long time ago, but I only saw this question again recently and felt I had to add another 2 cents.

What makes you think there was anybody at the UN camp who could be spared from their work to go get this child? How many other urgent cases would die because someone took an time off to walk the kilometre to the child, pick them up and carry them back to the camp?

I'm assuming you know the conept of Triage...

Journalism is not here to help us resolve our problems but communicate them,
but Humanity comes b4 anyones Job specially a Child.

Truly shocking!

I can't believe someone saw this child and didn't do anything to help her.

I'm not surprised the person who took the photo committed suicide. I hope his last thoughts were of not doing a stinking thing for that poor kid because he didn't want to catch a disease and of the personal selfishness that conquered his humanity.

Could someone give me a hand ?I can't find the photo
I keep getting forbidden, and file not available messages.
I realize this thread started awhile ago....
But the back and forth in this thread was most interesting
and enlightening!

Thanx


[edit on 2/16/2007 by Ex]

Originally posted by Ex
Could someone give me a hand ?I can't find the photo

Here ya go EX.

I am speechless!!!

its a terrible sight, that photo. I dont agree with those saying, you had to be there. I'm sorry, but i cant imagine NOT doing anything. Even if it was only one child he helped that day, even if the UN camp couldnt help her....i know i would have tried.
It was despicable of him to sit there for 20 minutes watching her suffering.
Going back to what maidenwolf said about students who would make crude jokes about photos like these; i will never understand people like this. I will never understand their parents for bringing them up like that.
When i first showed this photo to my kids about a year ago, they were horrified, and shocked. Its so simple to instill a sense of empathy and sympathy within your children. It amazes me that some choose not to.

This picture won the Pulitzer Prize?
So someone out there must find it cool.
I admit I don't know how the voting works for winning that price but it shows the
human sickness.....

Wait just a goddamned minute.

The job of a journalist is to document events, not muck about with them. Journalists in warzones aren't there to help the wounded (that job falls to the medics) - the journalists are there to document the suffering and the horror - to make the rest of us understand. The same goes for journalists documenting famines and plagues.

If the journalist does his job, he raises awareness and that means a hell of a lot more in the long run.

If the journalists of the world spent all their time picking up babies and delivering food and helping the wounded and so on, we wouldn't have any of their amazing photographs to help us understand our world.

Remember the quintessential Vietnam photos? There are two of them that define that war. The accused VC spy about to be executed by pistol shot to the head, and the little girl fleeing her napalmed village.

If the journalists who took those shots had instead chosen to forsake their duty, we would probably still be in that damn war! Sure, the photographer could have dropped his camera and wrapped a blanket around the poor, suffering girl. He could have done that, and felt good about himself. Instead he forced the bile down and took the shot, and ended the damn war in addition to receiving a pullitzer AND helping the little girl (after he took the shot).

Read this. news.bbc.co.uk...

I'm just amazed that people have such a hard time thinking of the long game.

If some scumbag capitalizes on suffering, I'll spit on him with the rest of you. Waiting twenty minutes for the right shot? That's a bit much. Doing it for the fame or the money? Downright despicable. But at the core is a very noble ideal, that takes a lot of intestinal fortitude to uphold.

Photographers have real power to change the world, to crystalize our common understanding of events and germinate powerful surges in public sentiment.

They have to do what they do; they have to take the picture to do their duty. Nick could have forsaken that shot to get the girl some water five seconds sooner, but he didn't. He did his duty.

I, for one, am grateful for photographers who hover in the midst of tragedy without doing much of anything immediate to help the victims. They do their part to ease suffering as surely as any medic, it just takes a bit longer to pay off, that's all.

As a semi-pro photographer (have sold at least an image ), I have to admit the first time I stumbled upon this image it literally took my breath away.

It is by far the most awful image I have ever viewed. Its reality. Its life. We all walk alone, we just pretend many are around to carry us when we are weak. If that makes you feel better but Im here to tell you... get sick. People wont know you.

I am mostly pissed that this was deserving of any prize.

Then, Im angry that some babies are born into this and some are born stinking rich.

Then the photographer... Im sure he was numb to a lot of things until he got out of it. I understand, as a photographer why he captured the image. I would have too. It speaks volume about the tragedy he was there to portray.

He was doing his job.

Having said that, I couldnt have waited the 20 minutes knowing the child was so weak, hungry and thirsty. I would have had to have literally stumpled onto the scene... captured 'that'... and there is nothing that could have stopped me from helping that baby. Nothing.

I know when I get behind that lens, I change. I admit that and thats what made me post. Thats my zen. Nothing else is around except everything! No thoughts, just a nice place in my head. I call it 'awakened doing'. To me, thats when you love doing something MORE than you love any reward that might come from it. It comes easily and with no thought, Zen.

On the other hand, because it captures what he was paid to go capture, he is very deserving of such a noble prize for he damn sure pulled that off.

Morally, I would have to open a vain to if I had to live with that.

God rest his soul and the little girls, assuming she never made it. Something tells me she did.

Originally posted by WyrdeOne
Wait just a goddamned minute.

The job of a journalist is to document events, not muck about with them. Journalists in warzones aren't there to help the wounded (that job falls to the medics) - the journalists are there to document the suffering and the horror - to make the rest of us understand. The same goes for journalists documenting famines and plagues.

If the journalist does his job, he raises awareness and that means a hell of a lot more in the long run.

If the journalists of the world spent all their time picking up babies and delivering food and helping the wounded and so on, we wouldn't have any of their amazing photographs to help us understand our world.

Remember the quintessential Vietnam photos? There are two of them that define that war. The accused VC spy about to be executed by pistol shot to the head, and the little girl fleeing her napalmed village.

If the journalists who took those shots had instead chosen to forsake their duty, we would probably still be in that damn war! Sure, the photographer could have dropped his camera and wrapped a blanket around the poor, suffering girl. He could have done that, and felt good about himself. Instead he forced the bile down and took the shot, and ended the damn war in addition to receiving a pullitzer AND helping the little girl (after he took the shot).

Read this. news.bbc.co.uk...

I'm just amazed that people have such a hard time thinking of the long game.

If some scumbag capitalizes on suffering, I'll spit on him with the rest of you. Waiting twenty minutes for the right shot? That's a bit much. Doing it for the fame or the money? Downright despicable. But at the core is a very noble ideal, that takes a lot of intestinal fortitude to uphold.

Photographers have real power to change the world, to crystalize our common understanding of events and germinate powerful surges in public sentiment.

They have to do what they do; they have to take the picture to do their duty. Nick could have forsaken that shot to get the girl some water five seconds sooner, but he didn't. He did his duty.

I, for one, am grateful for photographers who hover in the midst of tragedy without doing much of anything immediate to help the victims. They do their part to ease suffering as surely as any medic, it just takes a bit longer to pay off, that's all.

in basic philosophy:

"all actions no theories"

vs

"all theories no actions"

Originally posted by frozen_snowman
This picture won the Pulitzer Prize?
So someone out there must find it cool.
I admit I don't know how the voting works for winning that price but it shows the
human sickness.....

I'm not sure of the criteria involved for winning the Pulitzer Prize, but I don't think "cool" is part of it.
I find the winning photographs evoke an emotion in me that my family snaps don't, and I thank the photographer for being able to capture that moment.

I want to showcase just a few of the images that have had an impact on me.



The sheer horror of this image cut me very deep.





The truth being robbed from the public by one mans action made this poignant.





Seeing an innocent child like this is just sad, and it speaks volumes about what humans are capable of.





But some winning photos just make me feel good, like this picture taken in 1958.







Every photo that won this prize has merit, and I'm just glad someone was there to capture the image and share it with the rest of the world.

[edit on 19/2/2007 by anxietydisorder]