Thomas Hoepkar 9 11 Photo

It was the day when I changed my feelings about this forsaking happening. This was one of the most controversial days in history and this is said to be one of the most memorable days to happen in the entire world. We were all happy to see this amazing icon for this residence and to represent this to the entire globe, we would try and get a smallest peak  and thrive towards it to see how it’s really like, even drivers would try and get passed in their half million pound Mercedes. Funny that is, many of us would stand next to it and take a picture with family and friends. Of, course even tourists would do that, wouldn’t they? That’s too is excellent. But unfortunately all of these happy times had all shattered, right across our very eyes, waiting and waiting to come down. This is and was one of the most talked about situation in the past and it still is today, this was the day when the whole world had changed. This is 9 11.

All of us had witnessed this; this may be the news, radio, television and pictures. But, there was one image where it had made us all thinking and made was wonder what the real deal was with this controversial picture and our reactions to it. This image was taken on 11 September 2001. By a photographer named Thomas Hoepker.

This image shows a group of New Yorkers sitting chatting in the sun in a park in Brooklyn. Behind them is a horrifying grey cloud of smoke and dust rising above lower Manhattan from the place where two towers were struck by hijacked airliners this same morning and have collapsed, people getting killed by fire, smoke, falling or jumping or crushing and tearing and injured in the buildings.

Five years on this image was released to the whole world to see, as released this was becoming one of the most iconic photographs of 9 11, yet it’s getting massive responses. Hoepker was a senior figure and a classic photographer of renowned Magnum photographers co-operative, as he chose not to publish it in 2001 and had excluded it from being on the Magnum pictures on that devastating day. In 2006 this image had appeared in a book and this had caused instant controversy. However many critics had responded to this image such as Frank Rich, critic and columnist said that it is a failure to learn any deep lessons from that tragic day, to change or reform as a nation: "The young people in Mr Hoepker's photo aren't necessarily callous. They're just American." Rich's view of the picture was instantly disputed. Walter Sipser, identifying himself as the guy in shades at the right of the picture, said he and his girlfriend, apparently sunbathing on a wall, were in fact "in a profound state of shock and disbelief". Hoepker, they both complained, had photographed them without permission in a way that misrepresented their feelings and behaviour. In Which I believe that it could be possibly true, but also it had made us think that didn’t they know they were being photographed. After all, they could also be too drawn to the towers and not what’s happening around them.

Today, this photograph has us all thinking about this picture. It also has no reason for us to judge individuals within the picture, but to note that which photographer captured the moment, there is also a reason why the photograph was not published for five years the reason maybe because of the humility and the embarrassment that Hoepkar would have once released to the press and the media.

And so on, it has been ten years that many people had remembered this controversial picture and whilst people remember, our memories will fade fast. We are the people who our lives went on; we will eventually fade these in our vast memory. We may have separated ourselves with the Americas happenings; we may have touched or untouched ourselves with the people around us. But, this will forever remain the same in America.