9/11 Images.
Leading on form the realization of my theory that the most memorable images of all time some how invoke shock into the view, I started to think of events that images with this shock factor have immerged from and one even that sprang to mind first was the events that took place on the 11th of September 2001. In the days, weeks, months and years after the event images started to immerge, some of these images are fast becoming some of the most memorable and iconic images of modern times. In connection with some of the most famous image of all time the images from 9/11 carry this shock factor. For this part of my idea development I have researched into the most famous images from that day and I am going to explore why they are so shocking.
Firstly we all remember the press coverage of 9/11 above are just a few stills from new broad casts on that day. I bet if you asked most adults and teenagers who weren’t actually at the scene where they were and what they were doing when they heard about the attacks or if they remember how they felt when they saw it on the on the news I’m sure they would be able to vividly remember that day.
My memory: I didn’t find out that the planes had hit the twin towers till the end of my school day when I was leaving to go home, I remember talk of it in the car park outside school but I remember vividly getting home and my mom telling me that someone had flown a plane in the world trade center being about 13 at the time I didn’t know what the world trade center was but the TV was on and I just sat transfixed and in a total state of shock watching this image of a plane on loop flying into the towers. I even remember that we had someone coming and fitting some curtains in my parents room that day and talk to her about it and later on that night I went swimming and on the radio they where trying to estimate how many people might have lost their live I remember the figures going as high as 10 and 20 thousand.
I’m sure if you asked a lot of people there memory of the day it would be just as vivid if even more detailed. But I do remember being in shock for a few days afterwards. This sort of numb empty feeling almost like was detached from my own body.
Title: The Falling Man (2001)
Photographer: Richard Drew
This is an image of a man who jumping or fell out of the north tower after the plane hit on September 11th. There where a number of people who jump or fell out of the tower that day and where caught on film but this image has become the most iconic out of all of them all. I remember seeing this image in a number of newspaper on September the 12th along with countless numbers of other pictures but this is the one I always remembered the most and it seems that I’m not the only one. So why is this image so shocking and memorable and why do people seem to remember it over the other images of people falling from the towers? To start with it’s got that last few seconds of someone life captured in an eternal freeze frame quality, much like the “Fire on Marlborough street” or the execution of the Vietnamese prisoner images. It’s also got a long debated story behind it, the still unsolved mystery of who is the falling man. In a channel 4 documentary that I saw they speculated from their research that the man was Jonathan Briley, a 43-year-old employee of the Windows on the World restaurant in the towers but no one so far to my knowledge has been able to confirm or deny that this is or is not the true identity of “the falling man”. But I think what is so shocking about this image and also why it has become more iconic than any of the other images take of people jumping or falling that day is that when a person falls from a high object they fall feet first and flail theirs arms and legs as almost trying to grab onto nothingness also if its from a grate height the tumble end over end. But in this photo the man is falling head first and he appears to be still as if he has almost accepted his fate, all hope of his survival has been lost and now he is calmly going to met his end and there’s nothing the he or a viewer of this photograph can do.
Title: Tourist guy (accidental tourist)
photographer: unknown
This image was an Internet phenomenon Soon after 9/11 the photograph depicts at the time an unknown tourist standing on top of the twin towers whilst bellow him we see the first air America plane is about to hit the building. It was claimed at the time that the picture came from a camera found in the rubble at Ground Zero. It was later relieved that the image was a fake and a man called Péter Guzli (also the man in the photo) had created the image on Photoshop as a joke that he sent to his friends. At the time the picture cause quite a lot of controversy as families of the some of victims of the attacks and a number of other American didn’t find it funny just fueled the flames and made the picture even better known as it spread through out the internet and through word of mouth. The picture later won a best 9/11 Photoshopped picture contest. But why is this image shocking, I do remember the first time I saw this image I remember looking at it for ages trying to work out if it was fake or not at the time no one seem to know and it was shocking that this could actually be real and you can forgive people at the time who did think it was real as the press coverage looked like the scene from a movie not real life. And then when it was found to be a fake, at the time I can understand why people would have been shocking that someone would have the audacity to create and circulate an image like this apparently claiming it was real
Title: left: ground zero spirit (2001)
Photographer: left: Thomas E. Franklin
Another of the most famous pictures from 9/11 is this image of three firemen raising the American flag at the site of the World Trade Center attacks. The photo was a finalist in 2002 for the Pulitzer Prize in breaking news photography. This image itself isn’t that shocking but have to say this photograph seem to be one of the main catalysts for what began as the most over whelming amount of patriotism shown from one country after 9/11. I found it as a none-American a bit of a shock. For to me like the overwhelming patriotism this image seems really contrived and almost fake and staged. it bares a striking resembles to another very icon American photograph taken by Joe Rosenthal in 1945 which depicts U.S. marines raising the America flag on Iwo Jima as a symbol of American victory and supremacy. When I look at this photograph it shocks me is the readiness America seem to have to want to fight to men this photo might as well stand for “ you won the battle but we’ll win the war” and as we all know war is what they started.
