Hot on the Heels of Then and Now...

Just returned from an advanced screening of The Bang Bang Club, a film based on actual events that occurred in South Africa in the early 90's & one certain group of photographers who covered it, trailer here. Thanks to Heather over at Vancouver Photo Workshops for the pass. The film is based on the book written by Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva, 2 of the photographers who lived the story.

Plot: The real life story of a group of four young combat photographers. They risked their lives and used their camera lenses to tell the world of the brutality and violence associated with the first free elections in post Apartheid South Africa in the early 90s. This intense political period brought out their best work (two won Pulitzers during the period).

As a photographer watching this film the thought 'what would it be like to be there, to shoot the anger, pain, suffering and death of these people' trotted through my head almost constantly. The moral conflict would be as, if not more, difficult to deal with than the prospect of severe bodily harm. According to one of the photographers who spoke after the film (and photographed this same conflict at the same time), said film is pretty true to actual experiences he encountered with the rest of them.

In the story, and I suppose through the course of the actual events, one of the Pulitzer prize winning images (photographed by Kevin Carter) featured a young Sudanese girl out in the desert while mere feet away a vulture of roughly the same size as the girl stood and waited for the inevitable (image here). While the photographer was being interviewed, after the prize had been awarded, he was asked repeatedly, 'What happened to the girl?' and 'why didn't you help her?'. I think facing that sort of situation is as gut-wrenching as facing flying bullets.

I enjoyed the film. I'd suggest you photo types check it out.