Some felt that the photograph illustrates his psychological state, saying that he had to have been mentally ill to sit for twenty minutes waiting for the vulture to spread it's wings behind the little girl. I don't agree.
Carter was an experienced photojournalist and had documented the violence and suffering of South Africa's township wars. He knew the news values of a good photograph, and all about the so-called rules of photography. If you examine the photograph with the rule-of-thirds in mind, the girl is at the bottom right intersection, the vulture is at the top left intersection, with room around it to spread it's wings and still keep them in the frame. Photographically, it's a strong enough image to win the Pulitzer prize, how much stronger would it have been with the vulture's wings spread?
The West suffers from compassion fatigue. We tend to switch off when we see the familiar photographs of refugee camps and lines of people queuing up for water or rice. If you're a professional photojournalist looking to make an outstanding photograph, one that will move people and make the world take notice of the Sudanese famine, you have to come up with an image completely different to the ones we've seen a hundred times before.
Stalin said that one death is a tragedy, one million is a statistic. I believe that Carter used one girl's misery to highlight the suffering of millions.
Having said that, personally, I couldn't have left her there. Marie said in class that Carter had been told not to interfere or help any of the refugees. If I want to sleep at night, I have to operate by my own moral code. I'd like to think I'd have somehow managed to get her to the aid station, but I'm enough of a realist to know that terrible situations lead to equally terrible outcomes. Sometimes in life, there are no happy endings.
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