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Kevin Carter – South African photographer, photo by Rebecca

Top 10 Interesting Facts about Kevin Carter

Kevin Carter is a South African photojournalist and member of the Bang-Bang Club. He was the recipient in 1994 of a Pulitzer Prize for his photograph depicting the 1993 famine in Sudan. He took his own life at the age of 33.

1. He was a photojournalist

Photograph of South African photographer taking a picture of Kevin Carter photo from

Carter had started to work as a weekend sports photographer in 1983. His decision to be a photographer and a journalist was influenced by the fact that he had witnessed the Church street bombing the same year. In 1984, he moved on to work for the Johannesburg Star, went on exposing the brutality of apartheid.

Carter was the first to photograph a public “necklacing” execution by black Africans in South Africa in the mid-1980s. 

2. He was a member of the Bang- Bang Club

The Bang-Bang Club was a group of four conflict photographers, Kevin Carter, Greg Marinovich, Ken Oosterbroek, and João Silva, active within the townships of South Africa between 1990 and 1994 during the transition from the apartheid system to democracy. This period included much factional violence, particularly fighting between ANC and IFP supporters, after the lifting of the bans on both political parties. The Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging and other groups were also involved in the violence. Being a member of the club his story was depicted in the book The Bang Bang Club, which was written by Greg Marinovich and João Silva and published in 2000.

3. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his Photograph

This is a poster for The Life of Kevin Carter,

The Pulitzer Prize for Photography was one of the American Pulitzer Prizes  that was annually awarded for journalism. It was inaugurated in 1942 and replaced by two photojournalism prizes in 1968: the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography and “Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography”, which was later renamed Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography in 2000.

Carter shot an image of what appeared to be a little girl, fallen to the ground from hunger, while a vulture lurked on the ground nearby.  In April 1994, the photograph won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography.

4. He witnessed the church street bombing in Pretoria

The church street bombing was car bomb attack that took place on 20 may 1983 in Pretoria  by the Umkhonto we Sizwe which is the paramilitarily wing of the African National Congress. The bombing killed almost 19 people leaving 217 wounded. He therefore witnessed the bombing  serve out the rest of his required military service.

5. He grew up in a middle- class family

Photograph of South African photographer taking a picture of Kevin Carter photo from

Kevin was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, he grew up in a middle-class family and lived in a neighborhood for only white people. As a young child, he witnessed the brutal treatment of black people illegally living in that area by police officials. He wasn’t pleased with what he saw and also wasn’t pleased with his Catholic parents, who considered themselves ‘liberal’ and did nothing about the issue.

6. He dropped out of school from becoming a pharmacist

After abandoning his plans of becoming a pharmacist, Carter was forced to join the South African Defense Force (S.A.D.F.) as it was required to all white males in the country who finished school or turned sixteen, unless they were physically disabled. While in the S.A.D.F Carter witnessed a black waiter being insulted by other servicemen, he stepped in to defend the waiter, but he was badly beaten by them and was called Kaffir-boetie (a nigger lover).

7. His life and death inspired poets and Madmen

Photograph of South African photographer taking a picture of Kevin Carter photo from

Poets and Madmen is the eleventh studio album by American heavy metal band Savatage, released in 2001. It was their last album before their 12-year hiatus,

which lasted from 2002 to 2014. The album has a loose concept inspired by the career and death of journalist Kevin Carter. The album is also noted as it is the only Savatage album to not feature a title song from the album, although the title was taken from lyrics to the track “Symmetry” from the band’s 1994 album, Handful of Rain.

8.Kevin is featured in Book House of Leaves

House of Leaves is the debut novel by American author Mark Z. Danielewski. It was  published in March 2000 by Pantheon Books. A bestseller, it has been translated into a number of languages. 

The main character in the book House of Leaves, Will Navidson, is a photojournalist who is tormented by guilt over winning a Pulitzer Prize for a photo of a starving Sudanese girl but not helping her. In Footnote 336 it is mentioned that this is “clearly based on Kevin Carter.

9. The Manic Street Preachers released a song called ‘ Kevin Carter’

‘Kevin Carter’ was released as the third single from the Manic Street Preachers’ album Everything Must Go in 1996.The subject of the lyric was the 1994 Pulitzer Prize-winning professional photographer Kevin Carter who was awarded for his image The vulture and the little girl, taken in what is now South Sudan. Carter was troubled by the balance of his professional responsibilities with moral considerations, leading to his suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning at the age of 33.The song peaked at number nine on the UK Singles Chart.

10. He committed Suicide

Kevin Carter – South African photographer, photo by Rebecca

On 27 July 1994, Carter drove to Parkmore near the Field and Study Center, an area where he used to play as a child, and died by taping one end of a hose to his pickup truck’s exhaust pipe and running the other end to the driver’s side window. He died of carbon monoxide poisoning at the age of 33. Carter’s suicide note read:

I’m really, really sorry. The pain of life overrides the joy to the point that joy does not exist. …depressed … without phone … money for rent … money for child support … money for debts … money!!! … I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings & corpses & anger & pain … of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners … I have gone to join Ken if I am that lucky.