September 11th, a date that will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked. I was in 6th grade at the time, and scheduled to go to a friend’s house after school that day. Of course, plans changed. Sitting in front of the TV with my mother, I was old enough at the time to realize something was wrong, but not quite old enough to realize how wrong it was. Over a decade later, I found an old photo of me, my brother, his friend, and my father at the top of the Twin Towers and realized the date stamp was 9/3/2001. For over a decade, I hadn’t realized how close my visit to the towers was with respect to the attacks on 9/11/2001.
Still, it wasn’t until I moved to New York City in the summer of 2012 (and the first time I witnessed the Tribute in Light), and even more so until my interest in photography blossomed in 2014, that I began to understand and appreciate the gravity of this day. Since then, I’ve tried to photograph the Tribute in Light from different locations from within the city and beyond. Now that I teach at a school in which every classroom has view of the city skyline, I can only imagine what that morning would’ve been like as either a student or teacher…
This year’s anniversary was a unique one, photographically speaking. I’ve been trying to get a photo of the beams of light striking a low hanging cloud in such a way that they appeared to stop midair, that the twin beams would appear as the ghosts of the Twin Towers. These beams are powerful enough to reach 4 miles into sky, more than half the height the commercial airliners that struck the towers should’ve been flying at.
This year, despite rain and thunderstorms in the forecast, I made my way to Liberty State Park. It wasn’t until I was less than two miles away that I could see the beams through the haze of the clouds when usually they can be seen up to 60 miles away. As I parked, I realized this night would be special, this night I would capture the spirit of the tribute in a way that I never had before…
The twin beams of the Tribute in Light. 9/11/2018