Twenty-five years ago, I spent several days photographing American flags in New York. It might be some of the most important work I’ve done.
It’s difficult to believe that 9/11 happened 25 years ago this week. It’s equally difficult to think that day helped shape the photographer I became. Both are true, and as the anniversary news coverage unfolds while I write this, I’ve found myself reflecting on those 25 years.
This article isn’t about what happened that day – there’s nothing I can tell you that you don’t already know – but suffice it to say that it was a tough day to be an American, and an even tougher day to be a New Yorker.
When you’re in the middle of an event like that, it’s easy to feel helpless, and it doesn’t take long for that to evolve into a need to do something, to regain some control over the situation in whatever way you can. I think that’s part of why first responders drove fire trucks from across the US and Canada to help; New York needed them, but I believe it also answered a need to do something.
For me, that something was photography.
I wasn’t a working photographer then. I had never even sold a photo. I was just the guy who always carried a camera. I’d always aspired to do something meaningful with photography, but hadn’t figured out how. Sure, I could take good photos, but that was about the extent of it.
In the days that followed, we were exposed to a lot of photos. It was overwhelming. But it didn’t take long to realize I wasn’t overwhelmed by photos; I was overwhelmed by photos of destruction. I needed to find something else.
And so I set off into the streets of New York with my camera and several rolls of film in search of something hopeful, and it didn’t take long to find it. Everywhere I looked, I saw American flags. And wherever I saw a flag, I saw people expressing hope.
We Americans have a complicated relationship with our flag, but in September of 2001, it was the one thing none of us needed to argue about. It was a symbol that we were in this together, and that we’d dig our way out together.
I latched onto that, and for the next several days I made it my mission to photograph flags in New York City. In the process, I found my voice as a photographer, though I wouldn’t realize it until later.
What I took from that experience is that photography isn’t just about taking pictures, it’s about telling a story. And at times, not the obvious one. I was surrounded by people using cameras to document devastation; I wanted to document for history that there was another story to be told.
I’m not naive enough to think I was the only person in New York who figured this out. But it was a lightbulb moment for me. The kind of thing you can read in a book or hear from a more experienced photographer, but still not understand until you’ve lived it.
Fast forward a few years, after I’d relocated to the West Coast. I happened to mention this collection of photos to an acquaintance, along with the fact that no one but me had ever seen them. Intrigued, he invited me to share my story and my photos with a local civic group.
The next thing I knew, I was getting invited to speak to all kinds of groups. It was the story of an event still visceral in people’s memories – but not the story they were used to hearing. I distinctly remember one man who had been living in New York at the time telling me that while he recognized many of the places in my photos, my photos told a story he’d never seen before.
Talks became exhibits, and exhibits became a book, coauthored by someone I met at one of those talks. Flags Across America grew well beyond our original vision and includes works from many other people, but it still has a section dedicated to my flag photos from New York.
What started as a project to cope with feeling helpless eventually reached more people than I can count, and taught me to appreciate the power of storytelling through photos.
To this day, I have hundreds of photos from that project, shot on slide film, that I’ve never taken the time to scan. I don’t even remember what’s in most of them. But I know I should do something with them, because history matters.
A few years ago, I wrote an article called “What is your digital shoebox?” and asked readers what would happen to their photos when they were gone. I’ve thought about that a lot in the past couple of days, and about the fact that photos taken contemporaneously with important historical events often have real value to future historians. My collection needs to find a home. If you have suggestions, let me know.
25 years is a significant slice of a life, and this anniversary makes me feel a little older today than I did yesterday. But I’d like to think I learned something important from the experience, and that I’ve touched a few people positively along the way with my photography.
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