Gene McSweeney, Grey Water Photography, 06-04-2006
What you will see below are a few images, etched in our hearts forever. Most of you would have seen them before, I am still puttin them up here as a sad reminder of how war, hurt, and nature's fury can destroy every effort of mankind to make this world a better place to be in.
Indira Mariyappan (by Arko Dutta)
The fateful day of December 26th, 2004 the great Tsunami struck the coasts of Cuddalore. Indira mourns the loss of her sister-in-law, her only source of support. Deserted by her husband, she lives with her brother, struggling for her survival.
Winds of Change (by Cheryl Diaz)
Standing proudly, 10-year-old Uniss Mohammad Salman was among students returning to Al Amtithal Elemtary School, one of the first in the city of reopen after the invasion of Baghdad.
The Afghan Girl (by Steve McCurry)
She was one of the world's most famous faces, yet no one knew who she was. Her image appeared on the front of magazines and books, posters, lapel pins, and even rugs, but she didn't know it. Now, after searching for 17 years, National Geographic has once again found the Afghan girl, Sharabt Gula with the haunting green eyes.
The Food chain (By Kevin Carter)
Visiting Sudan, a little-known photographer took a picture that made the world weep. What happened afterward is a tragedy of another sort. The image presaged no celebration: a child barely alive, a vulture so eager for carrion. Yet the photograph that epitomised Sudan's famine would win Kevin Carter fame - and hopes for anchoring a career spent hounding the news, free-lancing in war zones, waiting anxiously for assignments amid dire finances, staying in the line of fire for that one great picture. On May 23, 14 months after capturing that memorable scene, Carter walked up to the dais in the classical rotunda of Columbia University's Low Memorial Library and received the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography.
Two months after receiving his Pulitzer, Carter would be dead of carbon-monoxide poisoning in Johannesburg, a suicide at 33. "I'm really, really sorry," he explained in a note left on the passenger seat beneath a knapsack. "The pain of life overrides the joy to the point that joy does not exist."
A heartless city
The raging mob burns and pilages all that which comes its way. This soot-stained , terror ridden face of Naseruddin Qutbuddin Ansari, a 29-year-old tailor, was the defining image of the horror of the worst religious riots in a decade. He firmly believes Muslims and Hindus will unite in Gujarat on Thursday to build a better India.
The execution (by Eddie Adams)
With North Vietnam’s Tet Offensive beginning, Nguyen Ngoc Loan, South Vietnam’s national police chief, was doing all he could to keep Viet Cong guerrillas from Saigon. As Loan executed a prisoner who was said to be a Viet Cong captain, AP photographer Eddie Adams opened the shutter. Adams won a Pulitzer Prize for a picture that, as much as any, turned public opinion against the war.
The melting girl (by Nick Ut)
Nick Ut : " The picture shows Kim, when her skin is burned so badly. Behind Kim, you see all the South Vietnamese armies running with her, together. She looked ever so bad - I thought that she would die.You know, I had been outside the village that morning and I took a lot of pictures. I was almost leaving the village when I saw two aeroplanes. The first dropped four bombs and the second aeroplane dropped another four napalm [bombs]."
P.S: Kim Phuc now lives in Canada
Lost Souls ( by Caroyln Cole)
Kinny Kanneh, age 9, was wounded when mortar rounds landed in a Monrovia refugee camp run by the American embassy. Refugees descended on the capital to avoid fighting, but the violence followed. Pulitzer Prize winner in 2003.
Each of this image is a story in itself, and though not every story has a happy ending, these images ensured that their endings would change, if they haven't already been done. They will be. Oneday. Someday...
