9/11: the Falling Man

reflex said:
Watching it, The man who took the photos is trying to justify taking them so much its almost as if he knows hes done a awful thing.
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He didn't do an awful thing, he captured an awful moment in history so that we never forget. :(
 
reflex said:
Watching it, The man who took the photos is trying to justify taking them so much its almost as if he knows hes done a awful thing.
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To be honest he doesnt need to justify anything, those pictures showed how bad it was.
 
Skunkworks said:
Damn it! There's a programme about Tony Martin on the other side at the same time, and I don't have a VCR. :mad:
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Im watching this, I didnt know what the falling man was about but I would have watched it if i knew, more than likely it will be repeated.
 
I didnt say he had done somthing awful, i said he seems to think he has

I may have put it wrong but ^ thats what i ment
 
reflex said:
Watching it, The man who took the photos is trying to justify taking them so much its almost as if he knows hes done a awful thing.
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That's because he did get a slating for taking those photos. There's an artice on Esquire published in 2003 which pretty much details everything in the programme. Funnily enough, I stumbled accross this image on the internet a couple of weeks ago and read into the subject matter. What an absolutely horrible decision they must have had to make :(

Edit: No idea if this is a repeat from a couple of years ago or not, but it seems to follow the flow of the Esquire article almost precisely. In fact, some of the interviews correspond word for word..
 
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Muban said:
It is truly so awful and so hard to comprehend what it was like for these people. Very few things on TV move me to tears, this does.
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Agreed. I watched the entire thing live on Sky News that day and it didn't really affect me. Sure I was shocked but for some reason I was pumped with adrenaline that day. I think it was the only way I could deal with it. Whenever I see anything about it on TV now its just too much to bear. The first 10 minutes of this show already made me want to turn it off. This image of the falling man, a man that could be any person in the world, has to be one of the most powerful if not the most powerful image I've ever seen It captures everything and makes it so personal.
 
cyKey said:
Agreed. I watched the entire thing live on Sky News that day and it didn't really affect me..
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Im not kidding here, and my mate had the same reaction. When i got home my mam was home, and my immediate reaction was to say "This looks like an interesting film, what is it?" to my shock when she told me.
 
I watched the first 15 minutes and really didn't want to watch any more, just a horrific day, I can remember thinking if the U.S. find out that this was done by a country (say Iran for example) they will nuke it.

I can remember going home and taking the maximum amount of cash out of the cashpoint just in case.

HEADRAT
 
cyKey said:
Agreed. I watched the entire thing live on Sky News that day and it didn't really affect me. Sure I was shocked but for some reason I was pumped with adrenaline that day. I think it was the only way I could deal with it. Whenever I see anything about it on TV now its just too much to bear. The first 10 minutes of this show already made me want to turn it off. This image of the falling man, a man that could be any person in the world, has to be one of the most powerful if not the most powerful image I've ever seen It captures everything and makes it so personal.
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Same. To this moment I can recall every single step I took from that day. Including word for word conversations from strangers I passed on the stairwell talking about it. Moreso the wannabe 'anarchists' in my year who upon hearing about it were loving it. I'm sure they realised how big a deal it was when they got home and saw the news.
 
Stellios said:
Im not kidding here, and my mate had the same reaction. When i got home my mam was home, and my immediate reaction was to say "This looks like an interesting film, what is it?" to my shock when she told me.
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Yer exactly. I think its so impossible to accept that we don't. We think its not real, a film, just TV. Its only a few years on that we know just how bad it was, just how real it was that makes us emotionally connect with it and then horror hits you.
 
reflex said:
Watching it, The man who took the photos is trying to justify taking them so much its almost as if he knows hes done a awful thing.
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Photographers are often questioned about this so I imagine his overly eager explanations are because he's used to being on the defensive.

But he had not done anything wrong, if he and the hundereds of others hadn't have taken these pictures then we would have known so little about this event. Pictures say a thousand words and express emotions and thoughts that words never can. Without these pictures I doubt we'd even remember this event by now, maybe a passing referrence made to the towers on the New York tour.

War photographers have to take some pretty horrific pictures and some people who can't deal with the images like to accuse the photographer of exploitation. But as one such photographer said "sometimes the best thing you can do is take the picture". There's no spinning a photograph, it forces you to confront a situation instead of just allowing the propaganda to suck you in.

These events are beyond the photographers control, he couldn't save that man. All he could do was make sure that the true horror of what it must have been like to be up there was not forgotten or ignored. The only alternative was to let him fall quietly to his death and let the world paint a Walt Disney version of events that day with heroes triumphing over incredible odds and whitewashing the deaths of those who didn't make it.
 
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Really quite depressing :( It's so sad to think about the decisions people were forced to make that day, i just hope the perpetrators will be found and punished one day :)
 
I watched it and don't know why.
I can say like most i spent the time thinking of those that died on that day.
Even though i saw it live on telly i still find it hard to accept that it happened.
Totally shocking event in all ways. :(
 
I couldnt watch it. Watched about 2 minutes and turned over, it's upsetting beyond words. Like countless others, having watched the whole thing live, including the second plane, it's all incredibly personal somehow. I dont know if I'll ever be able to watch this stuff.
 
I watched it, and I saw the whole thing live on tv. It didn't bother me watching the programme. I felt I was watching it more due out of respect.
 
There was a video hosted on youtube.com that has the crash along with some emotionally moving backing music.. I shed a tear I admit.

I remember seeing it live on TV and thinking, "Why?"
 
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