Sad picture in the history of photojournalism

Starving child and vulture, Kevin Cater 1963

The PHOTO in the mail is the Pultizer prize winning photo taken in 1994 during the Sudan famine. It depicts a famine striken child crawling towards a United Nation food camp, located about one kilometer away. The vulture is waiting for the child to die so that it can eat it. It shocked the whole world. These picture alone can make one shed tears because it is easily relatable. The hunger stricken child, with very minimal amount of time left before kicking the bucket is not only the worst part. The most horrifying part is the treacherous vulture standing patiently behind the child waiting for it to die. Everytime you scroll down your phone, laptop or computer and meet such a photo, you must be overwhelmed with desolation and guilt. The despondency about what the child is undergoing through. The fear of whether it survived and reached the UN food camp or it died on the way and devoured upon by the vulture. And the guilt of lacking the means to help the child. Far more, the photographer, Kevin Cater had a vision to enable get help for the starving Sudanese. The background itself is a definition of the true nature of the environment. The fact that the little child is the only one in the environment, no one else also shows that he or she is a survivor. Probably the only one hanging in there. The baby could not wait for help to come its way because there was non coming. So its had to use the last remaining strength in it’s weak body to crawl to the food camp and acquire help as much as the camp was too far away. The main aim of the photographer was to get help come the baby’s way as fast as possible. That actually worked and everyone around the world was able to witness the kind of suffering certain regions are undergroing through, especially in Africa. Therefore, through this kind of photos, people are able to show sympathy and and get help to those suffering. Photographs have been used for a long time to acquire from other countries for people who need it more.