7/24/12

Journalism and being the second vulture

This is Kevin Cater’s most disturbing and award winning photo, which should be named as the photo of the century. More than the photo itself, Carters life and death come to my mind time to time. It is the ultimate tragic story of mankind… his death is a monument to the tragedy of replacing the human means with materialized objectives.


As a photo journalist he managed to capture the baby and vulture correctly in his camera. He did it, because that was his assignment there. He won the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography for his work. When thousands of people who were disturbed with the photo ask what happened to the child Carter didn’t have an answer. Then only it was realized that he just concentrated on taking the photo, but not helping the dying child. Also Carter had told his colleagues that he had been waiting to see if vulture would spread the wings; which would have given chance to a better photo! Later on Carter committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning.


Carter’s story just highlights the tragic of forgetting the primary responsibilities of a man.  Before you become a photographer, before you become a journalist you are a man and that’s never changed. You are not paid for that… you are not honored for that, but that’s the responsibility carry on your shoulder when you are born.

One critique on Carters photo redefined photographer as the second vulture in the scene. It is not unfair at all. Vulture in the photo is an opportunistic bird, and so is the photographer in that occasion. What is the difference….?

In context of Sri Lanka, we see propagating a lot of web media that reports and analyze social issues to gossips. In spite of the debut of credibility of some such media, we also find it difficult to understand the vision behind some of the reporting. When we had the war, of course we had to hear the bitter news of human deaths in day to day basis. Now war is over and we don’t need to hear those, unless as a news. When it is a brutal killing or raping happen, some media seems to be doing a good job by giving them a massive publicity… In most cases, like Kevin Carter’s photo, there seems to have had two (probably more) vultures by the name of journalism.

How many lives we actually got?

When discussing above post with someone, it raised us to the discussion of role of a photo journalist.  Some conclusions, more or less, were as below.

“What else photo journalist could do than taking the photos. He is not there to do the job of a welfare worker”

Then my mind raised the question to me. Then why Kevin got depressed by the comments. Why people around world kept on asking whether he helped the poor girl. This is a serious question to me. This puzzle drags me to think deeper about definitions of each role we play in life.

Sometimes we are pleased to say that we had to do something according to my profession. As a journalist I had to report that. As a soldier I had to kill. As a politician I had to decide that way. As a scientist I had to create an effective bomb. If you believe in God, what is the life you carry in your shoulders when you meet him? Can you exclude your professional life? Can I justify a crime by explaining it in terms of my profession? Is there any limit of this?

After 9/11 CIA hired two psychologists (i.e. Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell) to train UA servicemen on effective torturing methods, known as SERE programme, which is even against the Geneva conventions. May be Bruce or James could think, professionally they had to do that. Most of all, society accepts them not like a killer works under labelled terrorist organization.

This is a big question in my mind. I think “professional” label is another myth implemented by post capitalist system to justify something unethical. I know a chemist who work for manufacturing company of Baby oils, but never use them for her babies since they are bad for health. She was kind enough to tell all the friends not to use those kinds of oils. Anyway, “Professionally” she is making them for thousands of other babies... All other professionals too are to do these kinds of justified jobs.

In today’s context we even say you should not mixed up professional life and day-to-day life. This sounds like, what we do as “professionals” will be not be tolerated by the values of a day-to-day life that believes in mankind and humanity. Is it?

From recent years I have been thinking of unified systems as an answer for these contradictions of life. Though, I am not a historian, I am pretty sure ancient civilizations didn’t work with categorised objectives as we do today. Each ones goal is to be inter-connected. In Sri Lankan context, I believe ancient farming or manufacturing didn’t raised problems of environment. Can we claim a massive structure like Sigiriya would have destroyed the adjoining surroundings or its lives? I guess this harmony should have been same for all other early civilizations.

Today, Banker is interested in cash circulation and farmer is interested in fertile lands. Power generating companies interested only in generating power, but not the environmental pollutions. Environmentalists too are programmed to go against each and every development plan without knowing how their houses are provided with power and how their vehicles are supplied with fuel.

This funny system recalls me of my wedding! Photographer just wanted to have most successful photo sessions. Dress maker wanted to make a success by producing best bride and that’s her aspect of wedding. She was not interested in anything else than that. DJ wanted to make it a big music extravaganza and decorators wanted to bring most beautiful flower arrangements under this sun and moon. Individual goals seemed to be over ruling the main objective sometimes. Ultimately, I and my wife were the only people who wanted a successful wedding.

Even under this situations, sometimes some people work according to the call of their hearts.  I can recall two simple experiences I came across. When we head to tsunami affected areas in 2004 in Sri Lanka to help people, my friend, obsessed photographer, Roshan came without a camera which surprised me. He simply said “we are going to help people aren’t we?” Second occasion was.. my cousin, Kasun gave up aeronautical engineering after spending successful years in university, when he learnt all the leading researches are focused on advancement of fighter jets but not passenger planes.  In both occasions, they could have done the opposite since they have been justified by the civilization. Anyway, their hearts might have given a different judgement.

If we turn back to Kevin’s story, he should have had a struggle on his stance.  If he was a super product of post capitalist monetary system he shouldn’t have suffered from depression. If he was a super product of humane purity, he shouldn’t have left the toddler along with the vulture. Kevin’s tragic story can be quote close to our story also. Have to be wise when working with so called “professionalism” comes bundled with requirements of monetary system, not the requirements of mankind.

For me I have only one question. There are no many lives called professional life, family life and etc... I got only one life. Question is whether I live it truthfully to my heart or not.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The little boy (Kong Nyong) did not die of hunger, abandoned by a scavenger of the info.

The boy in Kevin's photo survived 14 yrs.

https://howafrica.com/the-untold-story-about-the-girl-and-the-vulture-the-photographer-on-the-bench-must-read/

This is, I think a very complicated discussion. Personally, I don't like to photograph sufferings. Maybe I've chosen the easy way out. it is easy to photograph happiness. irrespective of their agendas, the work done by these journalists is by no means a simple task.

As you mentioned it's their job to take photos like these. We, as the general public, focus only on the subject of the photo I guess, but the impact of the photo on the society goes beyond. I can imagine someone who's very empathetic, can get into a deep depression due to the sufferings they photograph. Even though this image wasn't a direct reason for Kevin's suicide, I'm sure his work all those years would have contributed. Kevin chose to go to South Sudan even if it was not a work assignment for him, but I doubt he knew what he would come across in Sudan.

Another discussion on this particular image is what it symbolises rather than the actual situation. Actual situation, as I've read, is that the vulture is no way near the boy, but it appears that the vulture is close by due to the composition of the image. And it seems to be that the vultures were a common scene in that area, who usually were waiting for the leftovers. there were no records of vultures feeding on human corpses. So I guess this image is more valuable for the message it paints from a very common situation.

My argument is that we the general public would like to dissect these images and it is easy for us as long as we are not a part of the subject. And I don't think I would make money from an image like this. It's maybe because I'm not dependant on photojournalism for money. Maybe I'm not in photojournalism because I'm weaker in my heart.

Maybe the best we can do is spread the message in these images, so that someone can help in whichever way they can. Maybe that's the most noble thing a man can do, enlighten others.

Having said that, I doubt whether the situation in South Sudan has been drastically improve after 25 years. I think the famine situation had been eradicated. Even though we have forgotten the image with a kid and a vulture and Kevin Carter i think the message he passed on is still valid.

Apologise for the late comment. I guess I wasn't matured enough 7 years ago.

Keep writing man.

Cheers,
Roshan

Suresh Kumar Shukla said...

Many reporters tell this - stories of deep sadness and pain attract more readership.

Views, TRP, etc.
Most journalists in my country are doing such journalism most of the times.
I counter this trend with my free book Janta Malik. I write to empower people, so we see less of such photos.

www.jantamalik.in