16 Heartbreaking Photos That Should Give You Some Perspective

In 1993, photographer Kevin Carter won the Pulitzer Prize for taking this photo of a starving girl in South Sudan being stalked by a vulture. It was a rule for the journalists not to touch victims of the famine to avoid transmitting disease. Carter was so overcome with guilt that he committed suicide 3 months later.

The 8-year-old soldier’s son accepts an American flag at his father’s funeral – lets hope he grows up to be proud of his fathers sacrifice.

John Lennon with Mark David Chapman

John Lennon signing an autograph for the man who would shoot him dead only a few short hours later.











She was one of the first black students admitted to the Harry Harding High School in Charlotte, North Carolina. Her parents made her withdraw after she received four straight days of harassment.







Larry Swilling used to walk around Anderson, South Carolina asking  strangers if they would donate a kidney to his ill wife, Jimmy Sue. After one year of walking around every day Larey managed to find his wife a new kidney – what an amazing man.







A five-year-old girl holds hands with a 105-year-old woman as they are evacuated from the convention center in New Orleans following on from the infamous hurricane







A heart surgeon after a successful 23-hour long heart transplantation. His assistant is sleeping in the corner. We do forgot how amazing surgeons are!

@Koala
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/01/09/paw-mittens-needed-koalas-burnt-bushfires-animal-welfare-group-says

Actually happens pretty much every year (since we have bushfires every year)

LAST couple of weeks saw devastating bushfires in the Adelaide Hills in South Australia and a few days later strong and intense fires were burning in a couple of regions in Western Australia...

IT should also be noted that after a severe fire storm has been through an area, there is normally a respite of some 5-10 years while fuel loads rebuild and while we await the next Southern Oscillation ("el Nino") cycles with it's long droughts, dry winds and low humidity to exacerbate bushfire risks..

IN the early 1990s we had bushfires come past here (in the Lower Hunter Valley region of coastal NSW..) less than two years apart ~ the second fire had it's origin a few kms north of the first, burning through some of the untouched forests left alone by that first fire ~ while those previously burnt-out areas were left untouched.

Tasmania, Victoria and parts of NSW would take out the first three spots as the leading bushfire areas in the world [IF there was such a list ?].    

Followed [more-or-less in descending order] by western and mid-west parts of the USA and Canada, the 'Great Forests' of central and eastern Russia, certain rural areas around Indonesia and Brazil (where ignorant and over-zealous farmers regularly lose control during poorly-(mis)timed 'burnoffs'), and the drier 'scrubby' regions of southern Spain and France...

Large parts (mostly inland..) of NSW, Victoria and Queensland are currently under drought conditions, with weak 'el Nino' effects likely to continue over the next few months..    

Oh my god didge! That photo of the Vulture and the starving child!!!
That nearly broke my heart.

Great thread didge. Makes you appreciate life more x

eddie wrote:Oh my god didge! That photo of the Vulture and the starving child!!!
That nearly broke my heart.

Great thread didge. Makes you appreciate life more x

Thanks Eddie and have big thanks yourself.
That got me the picture and the man killed himself after Jesus, but the old boy with the picture of his wife, that was just beautiful and heartbreaking

x

Brasidas wrote:

eddie wrote:Oh my god didge! That photo of the Vulture and the starving child!!!
That nearly broke my heart.

Great thread didge. Makes you appreciate life more x

Thanks Eddie and have big thanks yourself.
That got me the picture and the man killed himself after Jesus, but the old boy with the picture of his wife, that was just beautiful and heartbreaking

x

Yes! God it makes you really reaise that life is there for the joy of living x
That photo is haunting me

eddie wrote:

Brasidas wrote:



Thanks Eddie and have big thanks yourself.
That got me the picture and the man killed himself after Jesus, but the old boy with the picture of his wife, that was just beautiful and heartbreaking

x

Yes! God it makes you really reaise that life is there for the joy of living x
That photo is haunting me

Sorry hun.xx

Brasidas wrote:

eddie wrote:

Brasidas wrote:



Thanks Eddie and have big thanks yourself.
That got me the picture and the man killed himself after Jesus, but the old boy with the picture of his wife, that was just beautiful and heartbreaking

x

Yes! God it makes you really reaise that life is there for the joy of living x
That photo is haunting me

Sorry hun.xx

Lol not your fault xx
I'm just ultra sensitive to that kind of thing as I know you are x

Brasidas wrote:

eddie wrote:Oh my god didge! That photo of the Vulture and the starving child!!!
That nearly broke my heart.

Great thread didge. Makes you appreciate life more x

Thanks Eddie and have big thanks yourself.
That got me the picture and the man killed himself after Jesus, but the old boy with the picture of his wife, that was just beautiful and heartbreaking

x

Correspondents go through a lot of psychological trauma, a big part of it seems to be the fact that they're sent around to document such horrific things but they're ethically obliged not to get involved in any other way. An acquaintance of mine was sent to cover the Iraq war for months on end as a photographer, and he had a really hard time adjusting when he got back and was put back on local general-assignment duties.

The account of Ken Carter's photo on Wikipedia:

In March 1993, while on a trip to Sudan, Carter was preparing to photograph a starving toddler trying to reach a feeding center when a hooded vulture landed nearby. Carter reported taking the picture, because it was his "job title", and leaving. He was told not to touch the children for fear of transmitting disease. He committed suicide three months after winning the Pulitzer Prize.[4]
Sold to the New York Times, the photograph first appeared on 26 March 1993 and was carried in many other newspapers around the world. Hundreds of people contacted the newspaper to ask the fate of the girl. The paper reported that it was unknown whether she had managed to reach the feeding centre.

Heartbreaking

I know I'd have intervened and helped her and damn the consequences.

eddie wrote:Heartbreaking

I know I'd have intervened and helped her and damn the consequences.

It's a tough spot! Imagine being the person who took this photo instead of taking action: