Pablo Bartholomew

Pablo Bartholomew's photograph of a child victim, Bhopal, India, December 4, 1984 Poisonous methyl isocyanate gas had just leaked from the Union Carbide chemical plant over the city. Bartholomew photographed a child killed by the gas, and the picture was named World Press Photo of the Year in the 1985 contest. Shown here is a memorial statue to the victims in Bhopal, not his photograph. It earns its place by giving a distant industrial accident one face that readers abroad could not look away from, without spectacle: there is no wreckage, only one child. For anyone tracing how corporate disasters reach a global audience, and how much they owe to photographers who stayed after the first headlines, this is the reference point.