Photos That Changed the World

Vulture and Child

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This picture taken by Kevin Carter in 1993 is surely one of the more shocking Pulitzer Prize winners. As we can see, it shows a little child, a girl, being watched by a vulture just waiting until she dies to begin his lunch. Kevin Carter heard a soft high-pitched whimpering near a village where he was in Sudan. When he got there, he found a little Sudanese girl crawling to get to a food center. When he took the picture after 20 minutes of waiting for the vulture to spread its wings, the little girl had stopped to rest. As soon as he snapped the picture he chased the vulture away. The problem with Kevin Carter is that he just took the picture and did not help the little girl. Some even compared him to the vulture just watching and waiting. When the photo was first published, hundreds of people contacted the newspaper to know what happened to the little girl. The newspaper had to run a special editor’s note saying that the little girl had been able to run away from the bird but that her fate was unknown.

In 1994, Kevin Carter killed himself. A suicide note was left behind explaining that his memories of what he had seen led him to do this.

Tiananmen Square protests (The Unknown Rebel)

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Jeff Widener took this photograph of a young man, who became to be known as the unknown rebel, standing, in protest, of tanks at the Tiananmen Square protest on June 5th 1989. The incident took place near Tiananmen on Chang’an Avenue. The man stood alone in the middle of the road as the tanks approached. As the tanks came to a stop, he appeared to be trying to wave them away. The front tank attempted to drive around the man, but he repeatedly stepped into the path of the tank in a show of nonviolent action. After blocking the tanks, the man climbed up onto the top of the lead tank and had a conversation with the driver. He is believed to have said, “Get out of my city, you are not wanted here.” Eyewitness reporter Charlie Cole believes that the man was taken by secret police and was probably just one of the many executed, since the Chinese government was never able to find him after the photo became public. He could have been one of the hundreds of students, workers, physicians, and children later found dead, shot in the back A June 2006 article in the Hong Kong Apple Daily stated that there are rumors that the man is now residing in Taiwan.

The Kiss at Times Square

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Alfred Eisenstaedt took one of the most romantic photos of all time on August 14th 1945. His style of photography was to snap quick and move on to the next subject. This is why the names of the sailor and the nurse are unknown. Most people look at this photo and wish that they could have or give a kiss like that at least once in their lives. What people don’t know is that this sailor is not as romantic as he is shown. This sailor was actually so happy that he went around kissing every and any woman he could find. Whether they we’re tall, short, skinny, fat, young or old he was just so happy that day. That is until he got to kiss this nurse. Caught by surprise by the sailor that just grabbed her from behind and started kissing her, she could only do one thing when he was done. No, not kissing him back as the picture shows, but to slap him across the face as the picture doesn’t show.

As we can see, photographs take a snap shot of a moment. That moment though can’t always tell what happened after, as we an see with are happy sailor or a starving child or a young mans beliefs. Many more photos that changed the world are available here.