Who took the picture of Hungry Sudan?

It is available on Douban

In this work, a Sudanese girl with a head as big as a bucket and skinny bones is about to starve to death and kneels on the ground, while a vulture is not far behind the girl. In the distance, a tiger is watching, waiting to prey on the girl.

The composition of this photo is the ordinary rule of thirds (the "well" composition method). The raptor and the little girl are respectively located at the upper left and lower right points of the four intersections of the "well"; it is empty. The environment makes the two subjects more prominent, and a powerful raptor staring covetously and a vulnerable child lying on the ground dying, which should not be together, appear in the same picture, the strength of the bird and the weakness of the child and the normality of people The thinking forms a huge contrast, giving people a stronger visual impact and ideological impact. The 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 desolate environment, it highlights the drought of the African land at that time (if not necessary, generally try to avoid this time period when filming) of).

Photographic composition is related to factors such as light, color, and lines in the picture, and requires their cooperation. However, they can only play a supporting role. From a technical level, 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 must serve the theme. The ultimate goal of composition is to better reflect the theme of the photo. This is the most important thing. This picture that shocked the world, "The Hungry Sudan", is technically a balanced composition, with the main form prominent and clear, and the little girl and the vulture visually echoing each other. However, the theme revealed by the photo and its composition makes the viewer's heart unable to calm down for a long time...

If we only look at the overall composition, the author just captured the scene. He encountered a good The content was photographed, but the composition and camera position were not very good. This is photojournalism, which only records this cruel reality, and is very average in terms of art. Therefore, the technical content of this photo is not high, it is just some basic techniques (but the basic skills are solid), and it is a captured photo. The key reason why it won the award is not the quality of the photo taken, but the information it contains, which gives people a shocking feeling and highlights the great famine in Sudan.

So, if we look at it from the perspective of photojournalism, this work is perfect enough. It conveys news information; it is a live photographic record of news images. It gives the viewer enough visual impact. It should be said that it is no longer a simple impact. It is a kind of shock that makes people temporarily forget what happiness is after watching it. . As a photographer, Carter did what he could. He told the world that there was still hunger.

The author of this work makes good use of the "art of subtraction". Photography is a "subtraction art", and subtraction can basically be said to be one of the most important technical/artistic rules of photography. To say that photography is an art of subtraction is relative to painting. Painting is adding to a blank piece of material, and intuitively expressing what you want to express according to the artist's intention. What is different about photography is that if not controlled, the photo will truly record all the imaging of the environmental image on the focal plane, which may be messy and without a theme. Therefore, photographers use the depth of field of the lens, local overexposure or underexposure, higher shutter freezing or slower shutter blur to control the content of the picture, making the subject stand out and the picture streamlined, thereby showing the world as seen by the naked eye. Different images, that is, eliminating unnecessary things from a picture that originally has everything, thus becoming the art of subtraction. A girl and a vulture can draw serious attention from the international community to the famine and civil strife in Sudan! ! ! From this picture, it is not difficult to see the turmoil of the current world situation! As wars rage on, the civilian population is most harmed! The poor little Sudan is just a small microcosm of the victims. In that land, people's lives are not guaranteed and they are worse than a bird! When did human life become so fragile? When life is no longer life, then why do we survive?

Of course, one of the problems with this work is that the framing only took part of the scene that shocks human nature, and failed to see the mother or other guardians of the child. So some people take it for granted that in the When the little girl is left without help, the author should first show a humane side: reach out to rescue rather than stand by and take pictures.

What we read from "The Hungry Sudan" is not only the pain of this child, but also the war at a deeper level and the various tragedies caused by the war. Suffering has never really been far away from human beings. Even though we are living a peaceful and peaceful life now, our friends far away are still suffering sufferings that they should not bear. Hunger is just one of the sufferings, and the greatest significance of this work is to draw people's attention to the civil strife in Sudan and the Sudanese people who are suffering deeply during the civil strife.