Tower of Voices, Flight 93 Memorial, Stoystown, PA  

     Over the years following 9/11/2001 I have amassed several meaningful and powerful images related to the senseless tragedy of that day. 9/11 memorials are scattered around impacted areas of northern Jersey and Ground Zero itself. An image I made back on the 11th anniversary of 9/11 is likely the most extraordinary Back Story that has found its way to my camera and photography exploits…it will have to wait for another September to be shared. Nevertheless, this month’s image was made only a few weeks ago from the FLight 93 Memorial crash site on my return home from North Carolina.

     An inspiring story for another time, I spent 2 weeks as an assistant to a close friend who was the lead instructor at the Penland School of Craft in the mountains of North Carolina teaching the Wet-Plate photo process. Leaving Bakersville, NC on August 11th @ approximately 5 am I made the long drive up to the FL 93 crash site that is now a US National Park in western PA. The plan on my 2nd visit was to make an early morning shot of the Tower @ sunrise Saturday when there would be no crowds. Arriving later afternoon Friday there was plenty of drama in the sky. I decided to play it safe and setup an insurance black & white shot should weather be uncooperative @ dawn the next morning. Sure enough, a light rain was falling the next morning, consequently no ball of sun to fulfill my idea. The trek home, nearly 12 hours !      

     If my sole intention was to make an “Art” photograph I would have set down the Iphone 14 Pro in the exact center of the tower looking straight up as I did. Set the self-timer to 10 seconds, step out of view and come away with the exact B&W image seen below. To say I knew the blue sky would end up in the area where the tower is open would not be truthful, to say, I knew this particular view would be unusual and powerful is completely accurate. However, my intent was always to use my vision to portray something symbolic, and powerful. The sunrise symbolism will have to wait for another day, but there is symbolism nonetheless in the opening photograph I made that Friday afternoon !

    The entire memorial is abound with symbolism as portrayed in the Tower itself. The Tower stands 93 feet tall, there are 40 angled reliefs, 40 different length chimes, each chime uniquely pitched symbolising the 40 souls lost that tragic day on Flight 93. There is an embedded video at the end of this Back-Story with the sounds of the wind chimes. The video does take a short time to actually download if there is interest in the haunting sounds of the Tower of Voices, take a moment to count your own blessings.

    My approach for a morning shot was equally rooted in symbolism. The idea was to capture a huge and dramatic ball of sun just cresting the horizon partially obscured by the tower…and in color, be it with the Sony a6600 or my Iphone. Using a very long lens which would greatly compress the scene and disproportionately create a huge Sun to Tower relationship not capable of being seen with the human eye. Flight 93 was the last of the terrorists acts that day. That huge ball of sun symbolizing the American Spirit. A beautiful dawn’s sunrise would serve to symbolize the awakening of a new American resolve in-spite of what the misguided terrorists might have hoped to accomplish with the unimaginable events of September 11, 2001. I don’t tend to encumber my creative approach with rules. However, there are two charges that come to mind as the camera is being setup. Always strive to create depth and dimension in a two-dimensional photograph, and, take the image in the direction it wants to go !  To that end, a color rendering with the sun an integral part of the image made all the sense for my attempt at symbolism.

      Weather dictated otherwise that lone morning I was in the area prior to returning home after being away 16 days. So, taking the only film image I made in the direction it wanted to go would yield a polar opposite symbolic rendering to my original sunrise concept. The drama and ominous looking sky that afternoon would play right into using a 110mm super wide-angle lens on the 5×7″ film format. Lenses which have such a wide-field of view typically distribute light disproportionately towards the boundaries of the film plane due to lens design and the curvature of glass. Hence, the shortcomings of the lens gradually magnify the ominous feel to the sky at the film’s borders and carry-off the gravity of what took place almost 22 years ago on this now…sacred ground. A photograph most fitting to symbolize the darkest day in American history…at least in my lifetime !

     My hope is to one-day portray the American Spirit as a new dawning in a beautiful sunrise against the Tower of Voices which memorialize the 40 incredibly brave souls lost that dark day. Each named on a separate marble panel seen below and in-between the visitors center and the crash site. Seconds before the 10:03:11 am impact the plane passed only a few feet above the hill where the visitor’s center now sits…the plane was upside down @ a downward 45 degree angle, traveling @ 563 mph impacted the earth now marked by a 17-ton sandstone boulder taken from elsewhere on the land.

        My only visit to the visitors center back in 2021 listening to the actual voice recordings from passengers to loved ones, their fate all but sealed, the calm and resolve in their words is one of the most chilling experiences I’ve ever had…at the time likely 50 people in the visitor’s center…deafening silence !

The below image is an internet grab from PennLive