The 10th anniversary of 9/11 is fast approaching so this seemed like a good time to dig into the crates and have a look at some of the thousands of slides I shot in 2001. Yep—I was still shooting film in 2001. Slides no less—could anything be more outdated in 2011? Kodak discontinued manufacturing slide projectors in 2004. With the exception of about 10 photos, everything in these albums has been scanned with my Nikon 4000 cool scan (actually not so cool any more).
It’s been a turbulent ten years full of natural and man made disasters. We may have killed Bin Laden but at the cost of an estimated 3
trillion dollars and a total body count of over a million. I can think of a lot more constructive ways we could have used the money.
In the days following the attack on the towers, I ran around photographing the spontaneous memorials. Because I’ve always been interested in creative expressions in everyday life, I found a lot to take pictures of. Shocked as they were by the events, New Yorkers rose to the occasion and their carefully crafted offerings and eloquent words given freely in public spaces lifted our spirits.
In 2011, it feels naive to mourn only the people killed in the September 11 attacks since those attacks started a chain reaction of death and destruction that continues today. I’m hopeful that in another ten years the world will be experiencing peace and prosperity and we’ll be able to look back on the tragic events of 9/11 as ancient history and remember how the spirit of New York City shone through.
The book:
REMEMBERING 9/11
only $8.76 on Amazon