World Trade Centers Remembered.

August 2001. I was still learning to use a manual film camera and I had some metering issues going on. The intent of this shot was to have everything in the foreground to be well lit but I metered for the setting sun by accident. The picture that resulted probably ended up being a much more dramatic and meaningful image. Film was all about those happy accidents.

August 2001. The view from the Empire State Building.

August 2001.

August 2001. In my good friend's dad's office only a few blocks away. This was when the scale and size of the buildings actually hit me. Up until this point, this was as close as I had been. Literally took my breath away.

August 2001. This is how I will always remember the towers. I felt like a little kid awash in total awe. Up until this point in my life I had never been made to feel so miniscule. September 2004. Tribute in light.

September 2006. Tribute in light. Fifth year anniversary. I was visting the towers for the first time that day with some friends who had lived and visited New York many time, so they had already seen the towere many times. They didn't want to go that day because it was just anther day in the city to them. It was boring and they had been there done that. But I was not going to let my first trip to New York go down without a trip to the towers. I had watched too many hours of movies, tv shows and history documentaries referencing these buildings to not visit. To this day I am very thankful that I was persistant and enough of a pest to get them to take me down to see the World Trade Centers.

If this trip taught me anything, it was to not take anything for granted both as a person and as a photographer. Just a month later these gleaming steal and glass structures would be piles of ash and rubble. I am very fortunate to have had the opportunity to be able to see them in person. This is how each and every one of us should feel about every day. If something as massive and amazing as two one hundred-plus story buildings can be wiped off the map, than anything can be taken away from us. As the United States and the rest of the world stop to remember the senseless loss of Two Thousand Nine Seventy-Five people in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington D.C. that day ten years ago, let it be a reminder to never again take for granted those people and the things in your life that are important to you.