The Vulture and the Little Girl | Hacker News Reader

The Vulture and the Little Girl

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The list of photographs considered the most important [1] that includes this image is a great resource to browse for photography. Unfortunately it makes no mention of some of the best collections like Prokudin-Gorskii's color photographs of pre-revolutionary Russia (numbering in the thousands) [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_photographs_considered...

[2] https://www.loc.gov/collections/prokudin-gorskii/

> Carter took his own life four months after winning the prize.

And that answered the question I've had ever since I first saw this picture. Truly sad, but I can't say I don't understand how Carter got there.

Imagine how he'd feel to know that we now have yet another famine happening all over again, this time with food a mere 20km away and hundreds of trucks laden with food just waiting desperately to be allowed to deliver their goods, blocked by both a government bent on extracting the highest possible price in blood and its citizenry that willingly throws itself in front of moving trucks to prevent the aid from reaching their human brothers and sisters.

To think that these all exist in the same universe.

Given this is a photo of Sudan, i think the more striking thing to imagine would be the current famine in Sudan, given it is the same country as the photo was taken in, and we are basically repeating history right now.

[I'm not saying there aren't other people who suffer in the world, just in terms of history repeating itself, i think the Sudan case is much more direct]

The most striking is that the current Sudan famine goes largely unnoticed because of the more well-covered crises in Gaza and Ukraine.

It's easy to assume that he became so despondent that he committed suicide after seeing the horrors of what was happening in the sudan, but another possibility is that he was already suicidal which led him to even take such assignments.

Truly heartbreaking considering he apparently left his own young daughter behind from this choice. I agree that I understand how he got there, but I hope I never understand actually giving up.

I highly recommend the movie Bang Bang Club as well as Greg Marinovich's book The Bang-Bang Club: Snapshots from a Hidden War [1]

[1]: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bang-Bang-Club-Snapshots-Hidden-War...

I do wonder if some of the best photos are heavily staged. Photographers always tend to extreme liberties to get the message they want.

Are photos staged? sometimes, yes. But also, sometimes, no. They just represent opportunistic events in front of the shutter.

I assure you, the "mounted police charging striking miners" picture was not posed.

I think "renaissance drunk man in the street" is not posed. Nor, "lovers kissing in the riot"

On the other hand "Italian men go ooga-wooga-booga as pretty girl walks by" was totally set up.

"pretty hippy girl puts flower in riot police gun" was probably a repeat, of something started spontaneously.

"dancing man" at the end of WW2.. unclear. "kissing couple at the end of WW2".. unclear. "2 seconds before the ramp opens on D Day" not posed. "Lee Miller in hitlers tub" -posed

"lee harvey oswald shot by jack ruby" is probably not staged. Ask the Warren Commission.

Exactly. As you're pointing out there's also a big difference between 'staged' as understood by the public, which basically means 'fake', and 'posed'. While posed photographs may not be spontaneous, they are still real and legitimate records of a thing happening at a time and a place.

A more basic example would be wedding photos. Yes, you are getting married, but you don’t typically take ten minutes to put on your shirt.

This is a complicated topic. These days you can shoot in bursts, I don't remember the top rates you can achieve with high-end mirrorless/DSLRs, but it is a wild number. While some take this for granted, it's still a relatively novel technology. On the other hand, famous photographers in the past did not have such luxury. I love film cameras, but taking a truly good picture with one that was manufactured up to the early 70's requires years and decades of experience, and luck, especially when the subject is moving.

Probably the most famous example of an ongoing debate regarding authenticity is Robert Capa's Falling Soldier [1].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Falling_Soldier

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