Seeing
The Horror
by Susan Markisz
News Photographer
David Handschuh has been running after New York stories for the past
twenty years. But on the morning of September 11, the story he was
pursuing sent him running for his life. For Handschuh and other photographers,
the day began as an ordinary workday. Some were deployed throughout
the city covering the mayoral primary while others were visually taking
the City’s early morning quotidian pulse.
At 8:46 a.m. the ordinary became the extraordinary as voices over
police and fire scanners reported ominous sounding information of
what was first assumed to be an errant private plane hitting the north
tower of the World Trade Center. Moments later came terrifying details
of a second plane, a commercial airliner slamming into the south tower,
sending photographers into combat mode, scrambling to find the quickest
route downtown. Within minutes, photographers who had made their way
to the scene, found themselves in mortal danger along with firefighters,
police and rescue workers. Within the hour, photographers were wiping
away tears, while at the same time producing stunningly surreal images,
destined to become embedded in our national collective psyche. By
the end of the day, the New York primary had become a footnote---history
deferred---to an ignominious terrorist attack on New York City’s
World Trade Center, leaving more than 5,000 dead or missing, and injuring
thousands more.
In a city where local photographers are often grounded on national
news stories, New York City became the literal and figurative epicenter.
As iconic twin towers symbolically---and now precariously---stood
guard at the southern tip of Manhattan, photographers going about
their daily assignments were reassigned to an unfolding disaster of
epic proportions. Local news was eclipsed by a monumental human toll,
buried underneath twisted steel and wreckage. Wire services transmitted
images almost instantaneously to a world in shock and newspapers and
magazines produced comprehensive visual editions of the attacks on
the World Trade Center. The New York Times produced a special section
called “A Nation Challenged” devoted to continuing coverage
of the Word Trade Center attacks and the aftermath. Time, Newsweek
and U.S. News and World Report each produced special editions that
sold out almost immediately to a citizenry that needed visual acknowledgment
that the unimaginable actually did happen.
With the country in mourning, photographers on the front lines quietly
produced some of the most astonishing images the world has ever seen;
astonishing in part because of the nature of the tragedy; in part
because of the speed of dissemination, in part because photographers
were eyewitnesses to events as they unfolded, not only as after-the-fact
documentarians. Two photographers lost their lives, others faced life
threatening injuries and many, perhaps not surprisingly, have experienced
emotional trauma.
Handschuh, a staff photographer for The Daily News, was scheduled
to teach a graduate class in photojournalism at NYU in the morning,
and cover late election results at night for the News. While cruising
around Manhattan’s West Side on his way to class, he heard voices
from Manhattan Fire on the scanner screaming to send every piece of
apparatus available to the World Trade Center. As W. 43rd Street’s
Rescue One rushed southbound, Handschuh swerved across the traffic
island on the West Side Highway, and followed them on their rear bumper,
observing their preparations as they threw on their packs, readied
their oxygen tanks, and placed tools in their bags. Handschuh remembers
several of the men waving out the back door to him as he took their
pictures. They may have been the last images taken of Rescue One,
who were among the first responders to the scene. Fire Department
officials have confirmed there are thirteen dead of Rescue One’s
twenty-five members, including two officers.
With massive destruction looming ninety floors up, people on the street
did not yet seem to be conscious of the horror unfolding above them.
“It was eerie and quiet,” said Handschuh, describing the
moments after he arrived, just before the second plane slammed into
the south tower. “People were coming to work with their coffee
and danish, just standing and watching. You could hear the flames
crackling, glass breaking, you could hear things falling. But it was
like someone had turned the volume off on the usual hubbub of the
city, like someone had hit the mute button.”
Handschuh himself had no inkling of the danger he was in until several
moments later. “I had no idea I would be running for my life
as a 110 story building was bombed by terrorists,” he said. Turning
his lens on the flaming tower, Handschuh realized that not all the
debris falling from the north tower was glass and metal. “I couldn’t
begin to describe what it looked like,” he said, referring to
people who appeared at the windows and in desperation began to jump
to their deaths rather than be burned alive, a sight and sound Handschuh
says he will never forget. He has no recollection of making the picture
that appeared in the Daily News, a photograph taken moments after
the second plane hit the south tower. Standing directly underneath
the World Trade Center, the photograph is framed by an achingly beautiful
blue sky as an ominous black cloud of smoke billows out, and a brilliant
orange fireball at the top spews glass and melting steel to the ground.
If the desire to flee in life threatening situations is strong, the
desire to stay and document them for news photographers, is often
stronger. While Handschuh stayed long enough to take some pictures,
at some point his instincts kicked in. “Time stood still,”
he said, as he looked up to see the south tower begin to disintegrate,
accompanied by noises that he said sounded like high pressure gas
explosions. “My initial reaction was to grab my camera, to start
taking pictures,” he said, “but in the back of my mind I
heard a voice that said: ‘run, run, run, run.’ I’ve
been doing this for 20 years and I’ve never run.” He is
convinced that listening to that voice saved his life.
Still photographer Bill Biggart and Glenn Petit, a cameraman for the
NYPD were not as fortunate. Biggart was killed in the collapse of
the towers and Petit is missing and presumed dead. Moments earlier,
Handschuh had run into Petit who told him he had “unbelievable
footage.” Of that moment, Handschuh said: “We gave each
other a hug and said ‘be careful,’ as Glenn ran east, and
was not seen again.”
Handschuh escaped with his life but was seriously injured. Describing
the vortex that swept him up in the collapse of the south tower, he
said: “The wind that picked me up was like getting hit in the
back by a wave at the beach that was made of hot gravel, like being
picked up by a tornado. All of a sudden I was flying, with no control
over direction.” He did not lose consciousness, but he was thrown
a full city block by the force of the implosion, landing underneath
a vehicle, trapped by debris, which crushed his leg, breaking it in
three places. Three firefighters rescued him, taking him to a delicatessen
near Battery Park City, only to be caught underneath the deli’s
caved in façade when the second tower collapsed. “There
were grown men inside, holding onto each other for their lives, some
calm, some screaming with just the desire to live, pushing their way
out of the debris.”
Shortly afterward, fellow Daily News photographer Todd Maisel photographed
Handschuh’s rescue by a paramedic, a cop and a firefighter as
they removed him to a police boat on the Hudson. Although Handschuh
lost his glasses, cell phone and pager, he managed to hold onto his
cameras until shortly before he was transported to Ellis Island on
a police boat. “There we were,” said Handschuh, “under
the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, breathing, entire huddled masses,
yearning to break free, the smoke from the destruction, a symbol of
New York, a symbol of the United States, a symbol of the American
economic system in ruins…And I didn’t have a camera.”
-----------------------------------
New York City’s news photographers were on their mark on September
11. There is no lack of apocalyptic imagery of suicidal bombers hitting
their targets. In stunning images of almost architectural grandeur,
there is Steve Ludlum’s perfectly composed image of twin monoliths,
breathing dragons of fire, with the Brooklyn Bridge as a defining
element in the foreground, an image which appeared on the front page
of the New York Times on September 12. There is Lyle Owerko’s
photograph, which appeared on the cover of Time’s September 11
special issue, taken at virtually the same moment, from the west side,
underneath the towers. In Washington, D.C. there is Jim Lo Scalzo’s
image of the Capitol shrouded in fog from the burning Pentagon in
the foreground. In what at first glance appear to be stills from a
Hollywood special effects movie, there are Robert Clark’s series
of four horizontal images taken shortly after the first impact. Against
a perfectly blue sky, as the north tower burns in the first image,
a menacing commercial airliner threatens the south tower in the second,
and in the third and fourth images, the plane slams into the south
tower, creating indelible reminders of vulnerability.
As photographers focused on the heavily damaged towers, there was
a sense of unreality to the attacks. The towers no longer seemed invincible
but down on the ground, camera lenses began focusing on the human
dimension, the impact of which was not yet fully comprehended. As
people leapt to their deaths from the burning towers, photographers
’s Richard Drew/AP and The Daily News’ Susan Watts made
those images, necessary to the telling, and controversial in their
publication. Some editors came under fire for reproducing images that
depicted such immense suffering. Drew’s image of a man in an
upside-down free fall, juxtaposed against the tower, almost looks
like he could have been tethered to a bungee cord. Sadly, he was not.
Yet for all the long lens images that suggested what was happening
at a distance, there were images in which the photographers’
proximity to suffering told a profoundly personal story: that this
was painfully close to home, images in which survivors’ eyes
or body language revealed what they might have been feeling, or thinking
at that moment. Stan Honda’s unforgettable photograph of a woman
coated with the pulverized remains of the World Trade Center, shrouded
by a cloud of otherworldly toxic yellow dust. She stares directly
at the camera in confusion and supplication. Perhaps even defiantly,
she seems to ask: “Do you understand this? Because I simply do
not.”
Shannon Stapleton photographed a mortally wounded Father Mychal Judge,
chaplain of the New York City Fire Department, who died as debris
collapsed on him, shortly after giving last rites to a firefighter.
The peaceful look on Father Judge’s face belies the surrounding
mayhem and the anguished look on the five men’s faces who are
carrying him out of the debris. Honda and Stapleton’s images
have an intimate human dimension to them, in a way that Ludlum’s
and James Nachtwey’s images, respectively, of the collapse of
the towers and the ethereal remains of the World Trade Center, now
known as Ground Zero, speak to the enormity of the physical dimension.
Also at eye level, are the following memorable images: Angel Franco’s
close-up of women reacting to the horror on the street, one woman
with her fist clutched tightly up to her face, the other covering
her eyes in disbelief; Daniel Shanken’s photograph of people
fleeing their city over the Brooklyn Bridge, surrounded by an almost
palpable thickness of gray ash and dust, one can almost feel its weight;
Todd Maisel’s photograph of weary firefighters on top of the
rubble with eerie remnants of steel beams as memorial at Ground Zero;
Justin Lane’s image of a man being triaged by firefighters and
EMT’s with an exhausted firefighter leaning against the subway
entrance. It looks like the end of the world; Suzanne Plunkett’s
image of the dust cloud chasing terrified pedestrians as the towers
fell; Ruth Fremson’s woman in red: red hair, red dress, her limbs
bloodied from injuries, sitting on a sidewalk, terrified, startled,
fragile; Catherine Leuthold’s photograph of a determined rescue
worker whose eyes and face are encrusted with ash, with what appears
to be a tear streaming down his face; Susan Watts’s photograph
of a dazed man whose shirt is caked with blood, being aided by a man
on a cell phone; Amy Sancetta’s photograph of a businessman and
woman carrying briefcases covered in dust and ash, fleeing the capitalist
marketplace, as if in subjugation to the terrorists’ unspoken
goals. If there is defiance in some of the photographs, there seems
to be resignation and abject fear in others.
These images confirmed America’s worst fears: that what was lost
were not simply American icons reduced to rubble; but rather what
Americans held most dear: mothers and fathers, sisters, brothers,
aunts, uncles, children, and, if you will, innocence. Photographers
used to being the ultimate observers, perhaps for the first time,
found that it was impossible to separate themselves from the story.
The emotional distance photographers have often called upon to maintain
a feeling of objectivity for their stories, disappeared along with
the thousands of other victims in the wake of the tragedy.
At a time when Americans needed a small sign of hope, Thomas Franklin,
staff photographer at The Record in Bergen County, NJ provided an
image that is already being compared to Joe Rosenthal’s photograph
of Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima, an image that Franklin made
of three New York City firefighters raising the American flag on Ground
Zero. Franklin, who has received thousands of phone calls and hundreds
of emails, “mostly from complete strangers around the world"
telling him what the photograph means to them, said he is hopeful
that money can be raised from the sale of the photograph to help victims.
“That speaks to me about the immense power of photojournalism,”
he said.
Photographers attempting to document the attacks confronted more obstacles
than debris and the cyclone fence that was eventually constructed
around the fallen towers. Not only did they meet with some of the
typical resistance from the New York City Police Department, but some
were arrested for criminal trespass as well, leading some to speculate
if press credentials were worth having. The first few days were so
chaotic that anyone who wanted to find a way into the site to photograph,
could do it with a little persistence. Carolina Salguero, a photographer
whose work was published in The New York Times Magazine on both September
16 and September 24, managed to get to Ground Zero relatively quickly
the first day by coming over in her boat from Brooklyn. But as time
wore on, access to the site became more difficult as the Police department
and National Guard threatened anyone with media credentials with arrest
even if they took pictures from behind the fence. While there was
an understandable need for FEMA and the NYPD to secure the area, the
public seemed to have as much access as those with legitimate media
credentials, angering many photographers and forcing some of them
to find creative ways of getting to the site. Some photographers were
reported to have impersonated firefighters and construction workers,
leading to dozens of arrests of media personnel by the NYPD. Many
photographers have voiced loud opposition to photographers who misrepresented
themselves, ultimately making it more difficult for those who used
legitimate means and current credentials to get their pictures. Unfortunately
for many who went through DCPI channels, getting close to the site
meant waiting hours to perhaps get only a block or two closer than
the so called “media villages” established by the NYPD.
Although closure seems elusive for Americans in general and New Yorkers
in particular, photographers who were involved in covering the World
Trade Center attacks, have expressed anguish about the people they
have photographed and the stories they have covered. New York Times
staff photographer Ruth Fremson, who was stationed in Jerusalem for
the Associated Press before coming to the Times, has seen destruction
on a massive scale, but “never at a moment when so many people
were destroyed.” Like David Handschuh, Fremson was caught in
the tidal wave of the two buildings’ demise but emerged uninjured.
She said she is haunted by pictures she took, of people helping others,
not knowing the outcomes of some of the rescue efforts. Fremson received
a phone call from the parents of the woman in red who appeared on
the front page of the New York Times, updating her on their daughter’s
progress. “Knowing that people are safe is a huge relief,”
she said.
In a twist of irony, Washington Post photographer Michael Williamson
found the tables turned on him while covering the emotional stories
of people searching for missing loved ones. “I was talking to
a woman who told me the story of being on the cell phone with her
daughter when her daughter died; her daughter couldn’t breathe,
and then silence because the building collapsed,” he said. “I
just started crying, and then another photographer photographed me
thinking I’d lost someone. I was just upset for all these people
who have lost loved ones,” he said.
Photographers have been profoundly affected by the World Trade Center
attacks. Veteran New York Times staff photographer Angel Franco, who
was in Kuwait, and who has seen smart bombs and terror overseas, worries
that none of the young photographers who have covered the events of
the past few weeks are prepared for the emotional fallout that will
follow. “None of them is combat trained,” he says.
Freelance photographer Aaron Lee Fineman, who was assigned by the
New York Times to take pictures on the night of the attacks, spent
from 9pm until early the next morning documenting rescue efforts amidst
the rubble. His photograph of workers moving wreckage during a rescue
effort, ran on the front page of the New York Times on September 13.
During the night, he was grazed on the back of his head by falling
debris and his digital camera was slightly damaged. Fineman voiced
concerns as a freelancer who pays for his own health and equipment
insurance, a not insignificant consideration for a person who risked
his life in the pursuit of his job. Assigned to return the following
night, he initially said yes, but then had a change of heart and decided
to turn down the assignment. Finding the experience turbulent, Fineman
said: “I have this vivid picture that I haven’t been able
to shake out of my head, of bodies beneath the wreckage. It was too
much for me the first time.” Fineman credits Angel Franco, who
has spent time talking to Fineman, with helping him to get through
some of the trauma.
The conflict of whether to stay or to get closer was described most
poignantly by Helayne Seidman, a freelance photographer who works
for the New York Post. “I was shooting on Broadway near Fulton
Street,” she says in her contribution to ‘Voices.’
“My first thought was, ‘Should I stay or should I run?’
I instinctively ran from the dust ball because I could not breathe.
I feared the other tower might collapse, so I covered the exodus of
people, rather than going back closer. The conflict of whether I should
have gone back has haunted me all week.” Surely Seidman made
the right choice, but the need, as a journalist to get images that
were in some ways not only difficult to make, but in some cases under
life threatening circumstances, have made photographers ask themselves
many questions: Why did I survive when so many others didn’t?
Why didn’t I get the pictures when I had the opportunity? Why
wasn’t I there? There were many photographers who for personal
or professional reasons, were unable to cover the story and are having
a hard time dealing with not having gotten images from perhaps the
biggest story New York has ever seen, a trite quandary, to be sure,
when compared to life’s bigger issues of life and death, but
one with which many are nonetheless grappling.
The visual testimony of photographers who have worked on this story
has been remarkable. But for many, the tears are just below the surface.
Mel Evans, a staff photographer for The Record, in Bergen County,
New Jersey says he’s done “much better working than not,”
but says when he arrives home at night he hugs his daughter just a
little tighter. Shannon Stapleton, chokes back tears when he thinks
of the photograph he took of Father Judge being removed from the rubble.
But he takes some solace from a letter he received from Judge’s
family thanking him for taking such a compassionate photo, telling
him: “It helps to know that he died doing what he loved best,
helping his beloved firemen and the citizens of New York City.”
Stapleton says he is heartened knowing that a photo could have a positive
impact amidst such horrific destruction.
Photographers can be proud of their work documenting history over
the past few weeks. But David Handschuh, now recovering at home after
surgery, urges them to be mindful and take a few minutes to assess
their psychological well being after witnessing the attacks. He says
it is not normal to see the kind of horror that many experienced first-hand
while on the job.
“Whether it means talking to a friend, clergyman, psychologist
or psychiatrist, it may be necessary to get some kind of stress debriefing,”
he says, adding that the outpouring of support from friends and colleagues
in visits, phone calls and emails have raised his spirits and helped
enable him to move forward. He acknowledges that although newspeople
often find it easier to talk to a colleague, at least initially, it
is not unusual for peer support to act as a springboard for clinical
support where needed. Two years ago, the NPPA, of which Handschuh
is past president, conducted a survey of about the effect on newspeople
of covering traumatic situations in doing their work and found it
was not unusual for visual journalists to suffer negative effects
from the cumulative exposure of repeatedly documenting the news. Newscoverage
Unlimited, a not-for-profit organization established in 1999, is working
together with NPPA on this initiative to assist visual journalists
in fostering mutual support through trained peer counselors. They
are in the process of setting up a New York office and a nationwide
support network to deal with the problems that will undoubtedly resonate
for a long time as a result of the World Trade Center attacks. For
peer support and information, journalists in need of support may wish
to contact NPPA/Newscoverage Unlimited at 911@newscoverage.org
or to get a complete list of trained peer counsellors that journalists
can call with issues relating to work related traumas, go to: http://www.nppa.org/wtc/help.html.
For general information as to how news organizations and individuals
can volunteer and support their ongoing efforts, contact info@newscoverage.org.
The Dart Center also has a message board set up for journalists who
have experienced trauma in their work at www.dartcenter.org.
Photographer David Handschuh is taking things one day at a time. People
have asked if he intends to keep on taking pictures and his answer
is “probably, yes.” He insists that “we will get over
this,” adding “we will be changed in ways that we never
imagined. But we will be stronger and more tolerant. Just looking
out the window at the blue sky makes me happy. I am here.”
Susan B. Markisz
October 1, 2001
