I have long wanted to showcase and write about the images I’ve made around the 9/11 tragedy.  This month’s featured image is the latest in a series tied to the tragedy of 9/11.  This image along with another dozen images are part of my New York City portfolio which will be on exhibit at the Camera Commons gallery in Dover New Hampshire, Artist Reception September 30th, 1-4 pm and on exhibit through October.  For a short period of time as the sun rises low in the sky from the East, it strikes one wall and bounces a circular specular highlight within the two carefully positioned Stainless Steel walls.   I’m going to dispense with technical info about the image this month, suffice to say preserving tonality in specular highlights reflecting from stainless steel walls requires precise control.   

     For so many Americans, September 11th, 2001 will always be a day etched in our memory.   It is one of only three days in my life (outside of the days my children were born) I can remember exactly the time and place of getting news that would be remembered for all eternity.   I was barely 2 months into a new school and the 6th-grade when on Nov. 22, 1963, news came that President John F Kennedy had been assassinated.  In a time when news could take days to travel across the country, I found myself being dismissed from school only an hour or so after the shooting during Kennedy’s fateful trip to Dallas TX.   On December 8th, 1980 while watching a Monday night football game Howard Cosell reluctantly announced during a live broadcast that John Lennon had been murdered outside his Dakota apartment building in New York City.  The only fact that I did not clearly remember 38 years later was, who were the Miami Dolphins playing in that football game, it was the Patriots of all teams !!  On September 11th, 2001 while working at a Chevy dealer in Connecticut word came to all departments that the owner of the dealership wanted all employees to gather in the service department ASAP.    We all gathered in the service area that Tuesday morning at about 8:35 – 8:40 am, with the huge garage door open to a beautiful and clear blue sky we could see the owner of the dealership outside alone, just walking back and forth, we would soon learn he was gathering his thoughts on how to make some kind of sense of the tragedy that was still unfolding less than 100 miles from where we all stood.  Finally, he came inside and began explaining the events of that Tuesday morning, his voice cracking with emotion and ultimately holding back tears he told us our country had been attacked and there would likely be mass casualties.  Little did anyone realize to what degree those casualties would grow to and the degree to which our lives would change due to this utterly senseless loss of life.

     This month’s image, Empty Sky is the official New Jersey September 11 memorial to the state’s victims of the September 11 attacks on the United States. It is located in Liberty State Park in Jersey City at the mouth of Hudson River across from the World Trade Center site. Designed by Jessica Jamroz and Frederic Schwartz, it was dedicated on Saturday, September 10, 2011, a day before the tenth anniversary of the attacks.   The design was chosen by unanimous vote of the Families and Survivors Memorial Committee, out of 320 qualified entries in the international design competition.^[1] The memorial is dedicated to 746 New Jerseyans killed in the World Trade Center in 1993  and in the September 11 attacks, as well as those who died on September 11, 2001, at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.^[2] The New Jersey 9/11 Memorial Foundation has stated that the goal of this memorial is to “reflect the legacies of those whose lives were lost, that their unfulfilled dreams and hopes may result in a better future for society. Their unique qualities and characteristics enriched our lives immeasurably and through this memorial, their stories live on.^[2]

Springsteen Lyrics  Empty Sky 

     Following are some other important photographs I’ve made over the years which are tied to the World Trade Centers.  Below is the very first image I made in and around DUMBO, (down under the Manhattan Bridge).   Both World Trade Centers are in the background very high in tonality as the rising sun was glistening off the glass towers requiring a long exposure to preserve detail in the dark areas of the wharf.   Following the attacks of 9/11, I stopped showing this image due to the tragedy and some sense of not wanting to exploit what happened on 9/11.   Some years later my friend Peter Bosco happened to see this print and asked why he hadn’t seen it before now.   He went onto say you must show this image, the Towers almost look ghostly !

     On Sunday, September 11th, 2010, I drove down again to the DUMBO area with intentions of making a photograph of the Tribute in Lights where two high powered beams of light would stay lit from dusk on the 11th until the next morning when they would be turned off.  It was my first visit for a 9/11 Light Tribute, about the only thing I was prepared for were large crowds in the DUMBO area so I arrived around 4 in the afternoon.  The area I wanted to set up the camera was unsafe and behind a chain link fence due to a decaying wharf, (the same wharf as seen above 10 years earlier).   I hoped the authorities would not take notice and removed me once I was inside.   There was an opening in the chain link fence that I needed to get the equipment and myself through during daylight hours mind you, the opening was smaller than I remembered nevertheless got thru and began the walk out along a very narrow spit of land which dropped about 5 feet to a sandy bottom between the stringers of the decaying wharf.  By 5 pm I was set up and the photograph was composed so I could focus the camera during daylight hours.   Several things happened as I began the 4-hour wait for darkness to begin, several times I saw rats scurrying around underneath the wharf, 12″ or more these rodents were !  About 6 pm in a field directly on the other side of the chainlink fence scores of young people began releasing white balloons to carry into the sky, several became lodged in the chainlink fence.   I made my way over to one of the balloons and I could see inside the balloon was a white tag inside, on the tag was inscribed a man’s name.   I would come to learn there were close to 3000 ballons released that day, each with a victim’s name inside of the ballon as a means of remembrance.  The photograph seen below was exposed for 15 minutes, 2 identical negatives were made and by the time I was packing up the gear, it was after 9:30 pm.   As I began the walk back to the street along the narrow spit of land I realized that it was now high tide and if I slipped me and the camera gear would be in chest-high water where the rats were once scurrying about.  With a backpack on and tripod in one hand, I carefully used my free hand to hold onto the chainlink fence and make my way back towards the street, now with all signs of visitors gone.

My oldest son and his family live in Hoboken NJ and most times when I visit I am out very early in the morning, most times across the river into NYC looking for photographs.   This particular day I left his house before 5 am and headed for the Holland Tunnel and NYC, sitting at a stop light waiting to turn and commit to going through the tunnel it started to downpour, I thought I’m not spending $15.00 and heading into NYC with it raining this hard (thanks for that Dad), so I stayed on the Jersey side of the Hudson River and drove around looking for something to photograph in spite of the rain.   I turned down a dead-end street towards the water and came upon this tribute to the 9/11 tragedy.   As it happened the sky was churning with rain clouds moving swiftly down the river I made the following image after battling the on again off again rain.