I would have taken the girl. No doubt ever! In my world you never leave anything suffering! EVER>

I'm no photographer.. I would've chased the vulture away and got food and water for that girl...

Disturbing pic , this neutrality in situations can be taken too far. Get the shot then worry about the person is basically sick all for sensationalism , no wonder he took his life . its too much of a toll on all . I just speak from my experience in battle situations I never just stood by.

He did what he thought it was right , and I have no opinion .
I know what I will had done . Take the pic , then pick up that body and take her wherever she needs to be .
I know my tribe will give me whatever medicine I need .
Also , from my experiance in Africa ( 2 tours / volunteer ), we were heavily on prophylactic meds 2 months b4 arrival and up to 3 months when back home . Plus vaccines .
I don’t know . I just know that I will had pick her up and start walking .

The world needed to see that photo. He may have saved many lives. I would challenge the critics to take a break from their frivolous spending to pitch in.

I think those who complained were indulging in a little self indulgent blame shifting.
This photo made me feel bad
I am unable and unwilling to help this child
Therefore I will blame the photographer for making me feel guilty
I will blame him for not helping, when I know I should and am able
But I don't want to, because I need a new gear stick knob for my Ferrari

I'm sure we do not know everything about this tragedy.

I can understand the moral dilemma Carter found himself in, and am saddened at him taking his own life. People are too quick to make judgement on others without having the empathy to put themselves in their shoes. This child was only one of countless children affected by this famine, his job was not to go there and rescue them, or feed them, there were other agencies doing that job, his was to bring their plight to the notice of rest of the world. He did that with great skill and effect, jolting our consciousness with his images. As a man of compassion and empathy he wished he could have saved and helped all the children, but that would have been an impossible task, instead he was working in his own way at saving them by using this image of this one child to startling effect. The approbation by armchair critics probably contributed to his suicide, but just working in this environment would already have been harrowing enough to drive him to it.

Not sure what the second guessing is about. You can take the picture and then scare the bird away and also leave some food and water for the child without touching them. "...even though there was not much that he could have done." I bet he had water with him and it wouldn't surprise me if he also had a little food. Anyone seeing that scene and walking away from it for any reason, without doing anything about it, is heartless.

Forget that scene. Today, if you saw a little girl in that situation in your town would you leave her alone? Would you take a picture of her to put it in the paper and walk away? I bought a homeless person lunch who was sitting outside of a Burger King, never touched the person and they weren't even on the verge of death.

Every one of us is in that position in some way. We know there are weak, starving, and sick out there we could help. And yet we don't. He just had a more direct contact with person than most of us.

The 1% in the US alone have trillions of spare dollars squandered on multiple mansions, mega yachts, car collections, million dollar parties, art, jewellery, toys, private jets, invested in companies doing heinous things, etc. etc. But we don't see them crying themselves to sleep or committing suicide over the tens of thousands of needless deaths per day. Why is that? How can any of us deal with that?

What a tough position to be in! Given what he did and didn't know at the time, I think that he did the right thing. "When we know better, we do better", or so I've heard.