The images you didn't see of 9/11

The photo below caused an uproar after Frank Rich wrote a New York Times column entitled, "Whatever Happened to the America of 9/12?" The photographer, Thomas Hoepker, didn't release the picture until this year because he felt it didn't reflect the mood of the day. In it, five young people appear to be enjoying a sunny September day in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, while the twin towers smoke just two miles behind them. In a Slate article, Hoepker talks about the experience of taking the photo and why he didn't immediately release it.


"I Took That 9/11 Photo"
Photographer Thomas Hoepker on Frank Rich's column, and why he thought his picture was too "confusing" to publish in 2001.
Thomas Hoepker

Now that a broad discussion has opened up about a photograph that I took on Sept. 11, 2001, on the waterfront in Brooklyn, I think I should add my voice and view of the event.

This image happened, in passing, so to speak, when I tried to make my way down to southern Manhattan on the morning of 9/11. I live on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and, being a seasoned photojournalist, I followed my professional instinct, trying hard to get as close as possible to the horrendous event. When I heard that the subway had stopped running I took out the car, only to get stuck immediately in traffic on Second Avenue. I took my chances by crossing the Queensborough Bridge. Then, turning south into Queens and Brooklyn, I stayed close to the East River, stopping here and there to shoot views of the distant catastrophe, which unfolded on the horizon to my right. The car radio provided horrific news, nonstop. The second tower of the World Trade Center had just imploded; estimates of more than 20,000 deaths were quoted and later discredited.

Somewhere in Williamsburg I saw, out of the corner of my eye, an almost idyllic scene near a restaurant—flowers, cypress trees, a group of young people sitting in the bright sunshine of this splendid late summer day while the dark, thick plume of smoke was rising in the background. I got out of the car, shot three frames of the seemingly peaceful setting and drove on hastily, hoping/fearing to get closer to the unimaginable horrors at the tip of Manhattan.

The next day I went to the office of my agency, Magnum Photos. There, on the light tables and computer screens, were hundreds of touching, shocking, and moving images that my colleagues had taken at or near Ground Zero. We quickly decided to publish a book, and I took boxes of pictures home to start working on a selection and a first layout. I choose three of my own shots that I had taken from the Manhattan Bridge but set the images from that idyllic scene in Williamsburg aside, feeling that they did not reflect at all what had transpired on that day. The picture, I felt, was ambiguous and confusing: Publishing it might distort the reality as we had felt it on that historic day. I had seen and read about the outpouring of compassion of New Yorkers toward the stricken families, the acts of heroism by firefighters, police, and anonymous helpers. This shot didn't "feel right" at this moment and I put it in the "B" box of rejected images. Now, in 2006, David Friend, in his book Watching the World Change, wrote that I had self-censored the picture.

Read the rest of the article.