Responses to the controversial 9/11 image.

Thomas Hoeper, the German photographer who captured image at 9/11. He chose not to publish this picture at 2001 but instead he kept that picture to himself for 5 years when finally in 2006 he published this picture. A lot of people complained about this picture but none of them really knew what the meaning behind this picture was or what is really happening. At that moment when that all happened he thought that there is something not right in it  and this is the reason why he kept it to himself for 5 years. People who look at this picture can only see young Americans not caring about the world or anything, but picture is not just a picture, it is work of art and if people are looking at it as the photographer who took this picture was looking at it, then people would have different opinions. This fantastic photo is whatever the photographer explicitly wants it to be and viewers can’t really tell the meaning or what it is really showing.

‘’ The picture, I felt, was ambiguous and confusing: Publishing it might distort the reality as we had felt it on that historic day. I had seen and read about the outpouring of compassion of New Yorkers toward the stricken families, the acts of heroism by firefighters, police, and anonymous helpers. This shot didn’t “feel right” at this moment and I put it in the “B” box of rejected images.’’ – Thomas Hoeper

This picture also had some different sides, other than we can see. Two people of this picture responded to this picture because they said that it is not true what people are saying and it is not correct and if Hoeper would just come closer to them and talk to them, he would see completely different side of these persons.

The man on the far right of the photo, emailed ‘Slate’ telling more about what is happening in that picture. He said that it is not true that they didn’t care in fact they were in state of shock and unbelief. He also said that they weren’t just relaxing, but they were talking about what is happening. Also he stated that Hoeper took this picture without their permission and he didn’t know what they were taking about and he definitely didn’t what they were feeling in that moment. At the end of his email he said that ‘A more honest conclusion might start by acknowledging just how easily a photograph can be manipulated, especially in the advancement of one's own biases or in the service of one's own career.’ This is true. It is very easy to manipulate with photography and it is easy to tell what you can see in the photo, but not always you can tell what people are feeling.

Also woman second from the right in the photo responded them with an email. In her email you can see that she was not happy about this picture and she did not like that the picture was taken without their permission. She also stated that she is photographer as well but that day she didn’t touch her camera (unlike Hoeper) because there might be something she could do to help someone instead of taking her camera and taking pictures of people without their permission. Same as the man on the far right of the photo said, this picture didn’t show her true feelings and in fact, her mother worked in World Trade Center and she said that there was no way that she would not be affected by this event.

[Source for both responses: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/culturebox/2006/09/its_me_in_that_911_photo.html Date: 27/09/2012]

Thomas Hoeper himself also did response to this photo. In this response he talks about how he tried to get closer to twin towers to get close up picture of the event. He was scared but still, he followed his photographer instincts and tried to get as close as possible. After he found out that subway was closed he decided to take car to get closer. After a while he decided to go next to river to take this photo and he found these five young adults sitting next by river and he saw the colours of flowers, sun shining up on them and this horrible cloud of smoke in background. He quickly took his camera and took some pictures. He didn’t know what they were taking about or what they were feeling. After he got back to his job, he saw a lot of different pictures of this event and they decided to publish a book about this event and when he was looking through his pictures and other his college pictures, he decided that it doesn’t ‘feel right’ and he put the picture in B box where he puts all rejected pictures.

After 4 years he was looking through his B box and was looking at all the pictures that were there and there were some 50 years old pictures as well. He looked through them and this picture of 9/11 took his attention because of the colours and everything else in this picture. He started to think about his emotions that he had that day.

The picture ended up on a wall of my retrospective exhibition in his hometown and many people who walked passed that picture, asked a lot of questions about it. Everyone seemed really interested in this picture. This picture ended up in 15 newspapers in Germany and in some other newspapers as well. At the end this picture was on ‘Slate’ as well and it hot really popular really quickly.

[Source for Hoepers response http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2006/09/i_took_that_911_photo.html Date: 27/09/2012]