[Leica] they had TWINKIE LIGHTS so i had to KILL THEM!

[cassidy@netaxs.com]

just got done reading "the bang bang club" at the suggestion of some
lugger or other, about the particular group of photojournalists in the
right place at the right time to get the shots during the end of apartide
in south africa -- one of whom was kevin carter, the guy who took the
photo of the vulture apparantly stalking the starving child. 

i can recommend it highly though i must say i was dissapointed at the very
nasty attitude of most of the members of the club towards just about
everybody, sporting behavior more appropriate for hocky fans than
journalists.

of some particular interest is the story of kevin carter's pulitzer (for
the aforementioned photo of the vulture and the child taken while
stringing for the ny times) -- in an enviornment surrounded by hundreds of
starving people, carter took the photo of the child and was very excited
about it, thinking it was a very good picture. later, when the picture was
published, he began to get a lot of questions asking "well, what did you
do to help the child?" -- the real answer was "nothing, i was surrounded
by starving people, this one was no different, i was there to cover a
story, that's what i did." but he got so much negative flack that he
started inventing stories ("i chased the vulture away and the little girl
made it to the food distribution center, i watched") and this, combined
with a bad drug habit AND the pressure of winning the pulitzer, began to
unravel him. eventually, he killed himself within two years.

there was a lot of leica use in the book, though canon seems to be
represented very heavily -- whenever someone wins a pulitzer (two people
in the book did, including author Greg Marinovich) here comes canon with a
basket of goodies ("here's a pair of EOS 1-n's and a whole bunch of
lenses!") like the tooth fairy.

the absolute brutality of a lot of the photos is incredible, especially
given the pervasive practice of the warring ANC and Zulu factions in south
africa for burning their opponents alive. on interesting thing is that in
pretty much every photo which contains a photojournalist, they're blasting
away with twinkie light fill flashes in broad daylight.

eventually time catches up with our heros, four in number to begin with,
one kills himself, one is killed by a bullet, and another is shot in the
chest and lives.

it's not a terribly challenging book to read (a day at the beach) and it's
not High Literature in terms of writing style or quality (these are, after
all, photographers, not writers) but if you're interested in the
photojournalists perspective, especially the combat perspective, this is a
fascinating book, well worth your time.

kc