- The picture went all around the world, and then disappeared, as if we willed it away. One of the most famous photographs in human history became an unmarked grave, and the man buried inside its frame—the Falling Man—became the Unknown Soldier in a war whose end we have not yet seen. Richard Drew's photograph is all we know of him, and yet all we know of him becomes a measure of what we know of ourselves. The picture is his cenotaph, and like the monuments dedicated to the memory of unknown soldiers everywhere, it asks that we look at it, and make one simple acknowledgment.
That we have known who the Falling Man is all along.
someguyfromcanada:
Amazing article. First published in 2003 and am unsure why they would change the date as it is a fairly timeless article.
The author has said of this piece: "I saw Richard Drew's photo of The Falling Man on page 7 of the New York Times on the morning of 9/12/01, and knew immediately that I was going to write the story. And I mean, immediately -- because it seemed a portrait not just of a man about to die, but also of a world about to be born. And so it was."
posted 2411 days ago