The photographer who broke the internet's
heart
Those
sharing it were moved by the fear in the child's eyes, as she seems to staring
into the barrel of a gun. It wasn't a gun, of course, but a camera, and the
moment was captured for all to see. But who took the picture and what is the
story behind it? BBC Trending have tracked down the original photographer -
Osman Sağırlı - and asked him how the image came to be.
It began to go viral(如病毒般的迅速傳播) Tuesday
last week, when it was
tweeted by Nadia
Abu Shaban, a photojournalist based in Gaza. The image quickly spread across
the social network. "I'm actually weeping(淚眼汪汪的)",
"unbelievably sad", and "humanity failed", the comments
read. The original post has been retweeted more than 11,000 times. On Friday
the image was shared on Reddit, prompting(刺激) another outpouring(流露) of
emotion. It's received more than 5,000 upvotes, and 1,600 comments.
Accusations that the
photo was fake, or staged, soon followed on both networks. Many on Twitter
asked who had taken the photo, and why it had been posted without credit. Abu
Shaban confirmed she had not taken the photo herself, but could not explain who
had. On Imgur, an image sharing website, one user traced the photograph back to a newspaper
clipping(簡報), claiming it was real, but taken "around 2012", and
that the child was actually a boy. The post also named a Turkish photojournalist, Osman Sağırlı, as
the man who took the picture.
BBC Trending spoke to Sağırlı - now working in Tanzania - to
confirm the origins of the picture. The child is in fact not a boy, but a
four-year-old girl, Hudea. The image was taken at the Atmeh refugee camp in
Syria, in December last year. She travelled to the camp - near the Turkish
border - with her mother and two siblings. It is some 150 km from their home in
Hama.
"I was using a telephoto lens(遠距攝影鏡頭), and she
thought it was a weapon," says Sağırlı. "İ realized she was terrified
after I took it, and looked at the picture, because she bit her lips and raised
her hands. Normally kids run away, hide their faces or smile when they see a
camera." He says he finds pictures of children in the camps particularly
revealing. "You know there are displaced(流離失所) people in the camps. It makes more sense to see what they have
suffered not through adults, but through children. It is the children who
reflect the feelings with their innocence(天真無邪的)."
The image was first
published in the Türkiye
newspaper in January,
where Sağırlı has worked for 25 years, covering war and natural disasters
outside the country. It was widely shared by Turkish speaking social media
users at the time. But it took a few months before it went viral in the
English-speaking world, finding an audience in the West over the last week.
Structure
of the lead:
WHO-
A girl, photographer
WHEN-
Around 2012
WHAT- Telephoto
lens
WHERE-
Syria
HOW-Everyone
felt sad about it.
WHY- The
photographer was using a telephoto lens and the child thought it was a weapon.
Vocabulary:
1.
Viral 如病毒般的迅速傳播
2.
Weeping 淚眼汪汪的
3.
Prompting 刺激
4.
Outpouring 流露
5.
Newspaper clipping 簡報
6.
Telephoto lens 遠距攝影鏡頭
7.
Displaced 流離失所
8.
Innocence 天真無邪的
