Appreciation of Hungry Sudan's Works

In this work, a skinny Sudanese girl with a big head is about to starve to death and kneel on the ground, while vultures are not far behind her, waiting for the picture of killing her.

The composition of this photo is a common dichotomy (the composition method of the word "well"), and the raptor and the little girl are located at the upper left point and the lower right point of the four intersections of the word "well" respectively; The empty environment makes the two subjects more prominent, but a powerful raptor and a weak child who should not be together appear in one picture. The strength of birds and the weakness of children have formed a great contrast with people's normal thinking, giving people a stronger visual impact and ideological impact. Color is the imaging effect of ordinary color film, and there is basically no post-processing; Under the strong sunlight at noon, coupled with the empty and barren environment, the drought in Africa at that time was highlighted (this period is usually avoided when shooting unless necessary).

Photographic composition is related to the light, color, lines and other factors in the picture, and needs their cooperation. However, they can only play a supporting role. Technically speaking, the most important thing in composition is to use the above factors to construct the most important posture or form on the picture, so that the viewer can perceive the center of gravity and theme of the picture at a glance. But in the final analysis, technology should serve the theme, and the ultimate goal of composition is to better reflect the theme of photos, which is the most important thing. This shocking picture "Hungry Sudan" is technically a balanced composition. The main shape is prominent and clear, and the little girl and the vulture visually echo each other. However, the theme revealed by photos and their composition has made the viewer's heart restless for a long time ...

If only from the overall composition, the author just caught the scene, met good content, photographed it, and the composition and position were not very good. This is news photography, which only records this cruel reality, and the art is very general. Therefore, the technical content of this photo is not high, just some basic techniques (but the basic skills are solid), and it is a snapshot. The key to winning the prize is not the shooting level of the photo, but the information it contains, which gives people a shocking feeling and highlights the great famine in Sudan.

Therefore, from the perspective of news photography, this work is perfect enough. It conveys news information; It is a live photographic documentary of news images, which gives the audience enough visual impact. It should be said that it is not a simple shock, but a shock that makes people temporarily forget what happiness is after reading it. As a photographer, Carter did what he could. He told the world that there was still hunger here.

The author of this work makes good use of the art of subtraction. Photography is a kind of "subtraction art", and subtraction can basically be said to be one of the most important technical/artistic rules of photography. It is said that photography is the art of subtraction, as opposed to painting. Painting is to add to a blank piece of material and express what you want to express intuitively according to the painter's intention. The difference of photography is that if it is not controlled, the photo truly records all the imaging of the environmental image in the focal plane, which may be chaotic and without theme. Therefore, the photographer uses the depth of field of the lens, local overexposure or underexposure, higher shutter solidification or slower shutter blur to control the content of the picture, making the subject stand out and the picture concise, thus presenting an image different from the world seen by the naked eye, that is, removing unnecessary things from a picture that originally had everything, thus becoming the art of subtraction. A girl and a vulture can arouse the international community's serious concern about famine and civil strife in Sudan! ! ! Judging from this picture, it is not difficult to see the current turmoil in the world! Wars break out one after another, and the people who suffer the most are the general public! Poor little Sudan is just a small microcosm of the victim. In that land, people's lives are not guaranteed, which is worse than a bird! When did human life become so fragile? When life is no longer life, what do we live for?

Of course, one of the problems with this work is that it only takes such an impact on human nature, but it doesn't see the child's mother or other guardians, so some people take it for granted that the author should first show human nature when the little girl is helpless: reach out and help, instead of taking pictures.

What we read from Hungry Sudan is not only the pain of children, but also the war and all kinds of tragedies brought by it. Suffering is never really far from human beings. Even if we live a quiet and peaceful life now, there are still people in the distance who should not bear the suffering. Hunger is only one kind of suffering, and the greatest significance of this work is to arouse people's attention to the Sudanese people who have suffered from civil strife and civil strife in Sudan.