Photographers revisit 9/11; 'It was that horrific'

Firefighters at Ground Zero, Sept. 11, 2001
© Bergen Record

Via msnbc Photo Blog

In his new documentary "Witness to History," photojournalist Thomas Franklin revisits 9/11 through the eyes - and lenses - of photojournalists who captured iconic photos that day.

Becky Bratu writes

When Tom Franklin, photojournalist for The Record newspaper in New Jersey, took the picture showing three firemen raising the American flag above the rubble of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, he had no idea it would become an iconic image.

“It was something that just happened,” he said. “I shot it the best way I could and I moved on.”

Franklin said he was standing about 30 yards away from the three firefighters, and the photo was one of a series of frames he shot of them that fateful afternoon.

On the 10-year anniversary of 9/11, Franklin - now a multimedia editor for NorthJersey.com - revisits the day of the attacks in a new documentary about the iconic photos of the day and the photojournalists who captured them. Franklin says photographers played an important role in documenting the historic day.

“I hope a lot of people get to see [the documentary],” he told msnbc.com. “It’s a way of recognizing what journalists do.”

Featuring dramatic images of 9/11, the 13-minute documentary “Witness to History” looks behind the lenses of professional photographers such as David Handschuh of the New York Daily News and Aris Economopoulos of the New Jersey Star-Ledger, and accidental witnesses such as Carmen Taylor, who happened to be visiting New York from Arkansas that day.

Taylor, who was on vacation by herself, told Franklin she would have been screaming if she hadn’t been busy taking photos.

While iconic, most of the images from that day are stirring, if not shocking. Franklin argues there is real value in retelling what happened, particularly because of the horror of the events.

“9/11 was that bad,” he said. “It was that horrific.”

Watch the entire documentary here, and watch Thomas Franklin explain how he got the iconic image of the firemen raising the American flag.


Thomas Franklin's photograph of Firefighters at Ground Zero, Sept. 11, 2001 is included in the exhibition "History's Big Picture" at Monroe Gallery of Photography through September 25, 2011.

45 Years Ago Today: The First Earthrise

NASA: The Lunar Orbiter I took this first ever photo of the Earth from the vicinity of the moon on August 23, 1966

 The Backstory

Via TIME LightBox
Tuesday, August 23, 2011 | By Jeffrey Kluger

Geocentrism died on August 23, 1966. Centuries had passed since human beings first dispensed with the old notion that the Earth was the hub around which the universe turned. But what we know rationally and embrace intuitively are often two different things. No matter where we stood on our home planet, after all, no matter how high we climbed into — or even above — the atmosphere, Earth’s horizon still defined the limits of our vision. We could see how out-there looked from down-here, but what we never saw was the reverse. And then, 45 years ago this month, we all at once could.

In that otherwise unremarkable summer, NASA’s Lunar Orbiter 1 arrived at the moon. As it rounded the far side on one of its early orbits, it snapped this head-turning image of the Earth — carved to a mere crescent like our own little moon — rising over the dominating arc of the lunar horizon. Our species had seen the sun rise and the moon rise, but we had never seen an Earthrise. It was both an illuminating and a humbling experience — one, some scientists hoped, that would help us appreciate the fragility of our little soap bubble world. Two generations on, that’s a hope worth recalling.

Jeffrey Kluger is a senior editor for TIME and oversees science and technology reporting. He has written or co-written more than 35 cover stories for the magazine and regularly contributes articles and commentary on science and health stories. His notable cover stories include reports on global warming, the science of appetite, the Apollo 11 anniversary, and the roots of human morality.


Related: Time's LightBox was cited as one of today's leading examples of photojournalism during the special event Photojournalism: A Conversation

INDEPENDENCE DAY, 2011

Bill Eppridge: White Barn, New Preston, Connecticut, 2007

• When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
-- Declaration of Independence


• Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
-- Abraham Lincoln

• Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty.
-- John Fitzgerald Kennedy

• Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.
-- Thomas Paine

• Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

• Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.
-- Benjamin Franklin

• Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.
-- Albert Einstein

• Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty.
-- Thomas Jefferson

• Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed - else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

• In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

• We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
-- Declaration of Independence.

via Times of Trenton Editorial Board The Times, Trenton, NJ



Across the Western United States and particularly here in New Mexico, at this time we honor all firefighters and give a very special thanks to the Wildland Firefighters.

PREMIERE OF STEPHEN WILKES' "CENTRAL PARK, DAY INTO NIGHT" AND VENUE MAGAZINE INTERVIEW

Monroe Gallery of Photography is pleased to premiere Stephen Wilkes' "Central Park, Day Into Night"; the latest in his new series of Day Into Night photographs. The just-opened exhibition of  photographs with a winter theme or setting, "'Tis The Season", features a 22 x 34 print of the image, and Monroe Gallery will debut a spectacular 34 x 54 print size at Photo LA January 3 - 16.

   



The current issue of Venu Magazine has an extensive and wide-ranging interview with Stephen Wilkes.

"'Sometimes I do get to places,' once remarked Ansel Adams 'when God's ready to have somebody click the shutter.' That person for our time - who thinks, feels, and "clicks" Ellis Island, the wreckage of Hurricane Katrina, Eric Clapton, Ruth Madoff, Carlos Santana, or day transferring into night in New York - is Stephen Wilkes".

To read the full article and interview, follow this link and scroll to pages 42 - 51.

BILL EPPRIDGE: AN AMERICAN TREASURE ON AMERICA'S BIRTHDAY

©Bill Eppridge: Bobby Kennedy campaigns in Indiana during May of 1968, with various aides and friends: former prizefighter Tony Zale and (right of Kennedy) N.F.L. stars Lamar Lundy, Rosey Grier, and Deacon Jones

Monroe Gallery of Photography is honored to announce a very special exhibition of photographs by the renowned photojournalist Bill Eppridge. Mr. Eppridge will be our guest at the opening reception in his honor on Friday, July 2, from 5 to 7 PM. Mr. Eppridge will also be in the gallery Saturday, July 3. This is a rare opportunity to meet one of the most accomplished photojournalists of the Twentieth Century. The exhibition will continue through September 26.

Bill Eppridge has captured some of the most significant moments in American history: he has covered wars, political campaigns, civil rights, heroin addiction, the arrival of the Beatles in the United States, the summer and winter Olympics, Vietnam, Woodstock, (see the special 40th Anniversary audio and slide shows from the New York Times and Life), and perhaps the most dramatic moment of his career - the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy in Los Angeles. Over the last 50 years  his work has appeared in numerous publications, including National Geographic, Life, and Sports Illustrated. He is the recipient of the 2009 Missouri Honor Medal for Lifetime Distinguished Service in Journalism awarded by The Missouri School of Journalism.

©Bill Eppridge: The Chaney family as they depart for the burial of James Chaney, Meridian, Mississippi, August 7, 1964

Recently, The Beatles! Backstage and Behind the Scenes, a photography exhibition of Bill's images of the band was displayed at the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C, before starting a world tour. In 2008, his photographs were included in the exhibition Road to Freedom: Photographs from the Civil Rights Movement 1956 - 1968 at the High Museum, Atlanta, Georgia, later traveling to the Skirball Center in Los Angeles and the Bronx Museum of the Arts in New York. Additionally, Eppridge's photographs are included in the exhibitions Voyeurism, Surveillance, and the Camera since 1870; Tate Modern, London; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2010); and A Star is Born: Photography and Rock Music Since Elvis Presley, Museum Folkwang, Germany (2010).

View the exhibition on-line here.