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'TIME' Photographer Discusses 9/11 Book

Aired September 02, 2002 - 13:31   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: The one-year anniversary of September 11 is nine days away. Between now and then, the whole world will be reminded of the many horrors that happened that day. Among the many retrospectives, there's a special tribute in "TIME" magazine.
Joining us now to talk about it, photograph Sean Hemmerle.

Sean, hello.

SEAN HEMMERLE, "TIME" CONTRIBUTOR: Hello, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Why don't you tell me what inspired this project and tell us about the project?

HEMMERLE: On September 11, I lived in Jersey City, New Jersey. We had a great view of the World Trade Center. When it happened, I grabbed my cameras as I went down.

Since then, I have been photographing a lot down near the site. Robert Pledge came up with an idea, and we followed it through.

PHILLIPS: Let's get right to the pictures, Sean. They are pretty moving. You did a before and an after. The first one we are going to look at 1 Liberty Plaza in lower Manhattan. Let's take a look at the before picture. Tell me about this and just the moment and picture -- and tell us about it.

HEMMERLE: Actually, this is after picture. The before picture is Frank Fournier.

PHILLIPS: Yes, right. We do we have the before picture.

There we go. We got it.

HEMMERLE: Taken is taken by Frank Fournier. He's a contact photographer. Frank was down there on the day of the 11th. He lives in Roosevelt Island, and bicycled down. After that, he didn't photograph around the World Trade Center for about 2 months, even though he is always down there. He was pretty shaken by it.

PHILLIPS: That's understandable.

HEMMERLE: When I went down there to take the picture -- this is Fulton Street.

PHILLIPS: There we go. That is the after.

HEMMERLE: That is the after.

I went down to photograph it, and I ran into Frank while I was going take this picture. His studio is down there.

PHILLIPS: What did he say to you?

HEMMERLE: He was wondering what I was doing. When I told him, he, you know -- we talked about the project, and it turned out -- I think it turned out pretty well, considering it is the notion of a ghost limb.

PHILLIPS: The contrast is incredible.

Let's go to the next picture, Sean. This is Greenwich Village. We all remember this image.

HEMMERLE: Yes, that's taken by James Keyser. He lives right around the corner from there. On that day, he was out walking his dog when first plane hit. Went back to his house, grabbed his cameras, took this picture, amongst many others.

PHILLIPS: How ironic. One way sign, and it's showing you, taking you away from the moment.

HEMMERLE: Yes, well just formally speaking, the after pictures and the before pictures are all -- they're very similar. But then with the omission of the World Trade Center, it changes the picture quite a bit.

PHILLIPS: The next one we have, of course, is of the World Trade Center towers, another image that doesn't leave any of us. This was -- this was the selling point of the World Trade Center, when you saw this.

HEMMERLE: Yes, I took this picture. In the foreground, you will see the black spires on the right. That's the dock for the ferry. And my girlfriend and I used to always take the ferry back to New Jersey. It was usually a pretty romantic thing do. So when this happened, that was one of the first things -- one of the first things I went to photograph.

PHILLIPS: That picture was from your apartment, right, when it all went down?

HEMMERLE: It was blocks from my apartment. This is right on the water. We lived a block from there.

PHILLIPS: And of course, this is the after picture. We saw the contrast there.

How often do you think about that day, from the moment that you took the picture and saw it all go down, to when you went back and took that recent picture. Do you dream about it, Sean, do you think about it a lot?

HEMMERLE: Yes, that's what I was talking about before, with the notion of a ghost limb. I have read about amputees who have a part of their body removed, and they seem to always think that it is there. For quite some time, I had quite a hard notion that the World Trade Center wasn't actually there any more.

PHILLIPS: We have got another picture, I believe. This is the vertical image, as we know, of the World Trade Center.

HEMMERLE: Yes, Alon Reininger.

PHILLIPS: Now, who took this one -- Alon?

HEMMERLE: Alon Reininger.

PHILLIPS: OK. Tell...

HEMMERLE: He's another contact photographer.

PHILLIPS: Tell us about this photo.

HEMMERLE: This one, I think, is perhaps one of the more elegiac of the photographs. It shows the World Trade Center for what it was. If this wasn't the most exciting architecture, it was an incredible feat of engineering. If you ever stood at the base of the World Trade Center and liked up, it was something pretty profound. Then the photograph that follows it, the after photograph...

PHILLIPS: The one that you took.

HEMMERLE: Pretty much the same angle. It wasn't very hard to find this angle. And I just waited until a plane flew through.

PHILLIPS: That's amazing. So you knew this was the flight path, right?

HEMMERLE: Yes, it is pretty easy to observe.

PHILLIPS: What kind of reaction have you received from these pictures?

HEMMERLE: A lot of people say they are sort of spooky. And I agree. They are -- they are sort of strange -- it's sort of strange to think about these two humongous buildings that are just not there any more.

PHILLIPS: Do you see anything spiritual there? You say "spooky."

HEMMERLE: Sure, call it spiritual if you like. I walked around the site with my mother when she came to visit New York a few months ago. And that was -- I would say it was surreal.

PHILLIPS: Sean Hemmerle, "TIME" magazine contributor, amazing pictures, and what a fascinating idea. I think a lot of times -- actually, the discussion has taken place even in this newsroom and among friends, you see before those pictures and at that moment, you forgot what it looked like. You took for granted how beautiful an area was or what an area looked like. And then all you remember was the moment that happened that day, those images. It is sort of neat to see the after pictures. Don't you think in a way it is a bit encouraging?

HEMMERLE: Yes, I would say. I think one of the most asked questions in New York about the World Trade Center is how tall were they really, because a lot of people do look and they say, Wow, there is a lot of tall buildings down there; how big were the World Trade Centers? So I think it sort of illustrates that point rather well.

PHILLIPS: SEAN HEMMERLE, thank you.

HEMMERLE: Thank you, Kyra.

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