Aside from the gut-wrenching rhetorical impact of this photograph of a starving Sudanese child, it also represents the story of a photojournalist who buckled under the pressure of journalistic ethics. South African photojournalist Kevin Carter committed suicide 14 months after he took this award-winning photo. Carter often talked about being haunted by the image of the child in the picture. Though this specific instance is not the only thing to blame for Carter's suicide, he did write in his journal about how much it affected him. Journalists are and will be inevitably faced with the decision to be, as this site puts it, "a savior or a witness." It's something to think about. As journalists, it seems most of us would like to have the chance to travel to places like these, but the tougher the environment we report in, the tougher the decisions become. It leaves me asking whether or not it would better to save the child or risk the child's life to open the eyes of millions to the reality of the millions of other starving babies in places like these. Regardless, this is reality.
This one is a little closer to home. Last Christmas break I had the opportunity to travel as a blog-writer to Guatemala for 10 days. There I gained experience reporting what I saw there. I got to experience what it's like being in another country, struggling to find ways to keep interested people up-dated. I got to spend a few days with this little girl.
And to lighten the mood a little bit, this cutie pie and its photographer Tess Sager helped make this photograph photo of the day July 19, 2010 on National Geographic's web site.
Nice portrait shot of you and the girl. I think this shows the best portraits are not of people looking straight into the lens -- a common mistake of beginning photographers. The close up of the elephant is fascinating --how often is an elephant photographed from this frame of reference? It's as if the photographer is sitting on his trunk.
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