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Voices of 9/11: Richard Drew

By Lauren Johnston | amNY.com STAFF WRITER

September 7, 2006

Associated Press photographer Richard Drew began the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 shooting a midtown fashion show but after the World Trade Center was attacked, he grabbed his gear and rushed downtown.

He shot one of the most chilling and iconic images from that day: "The Falling Man."

His camera captured the figure of a man falling in perfect alignment with the vertical façade of the trade towers. It sparked outrage and Drew, 59, has been defending it ever since.

Now it's the subject of a new British documentary.

What did you see when you arrived downtown?

I came up just north of the World Trade Center and both the towers were on fire. I started making photographs of the burning towers and of the people and there was debris on the street.

When did you realize people were falling?

I'm standing on this corner at West and Vesey streets by the World Financial Center with a police officer and a woman EMT. Then all the sudden [the officer] said 'Oh, look at that,' and I looked up and these people started coming out of the building and I was photographing them as they were coming down.

What were you thinking in those moments?

You instinctively just photograph the event as it unfolds. You don't stop and say, 'Yes I'm going to take this picture,' or 'No, I'm not.' You record this. It's part of history, it's what I do everyday. I record history.

Were you surprised by all the criticism?

Yes because there are a lot of other pictures that happened in times of war. There's the picture during the Vietnam War of the little girl running down the road by AP photographer Nick Ut after a napalm attack and then there's the Eddie Adams picture of the Vietnamese police chief shooting the man in the head. Those are all pictures that keep getting printed over and over again and are also iconic photos of their time and yet nobody writes letters to the editor about those pictures. But my picture is very peaceful. It's very serene, and it's a part of this person's life. It isn't showing eventually they're going to die, but in my picture the person is still alive.

Do you get tired of talking about this photograph?

Each year I think 'Well, it's one more year out and maybe this won't come up.' Then the documentary came up this year and now we have the magical five-year anniversary and I guess again on the 10-year anniversary it will come up again and maybe it will just go away one of these days.

Is that what you'd prefer?

Oh I don't know. I guess, yeah. Let that photograph speak for itself, I don't have to keep defending my photograph. I just pushed the button and the camera took the picture ... I still don't know why everybody is so upset about this picture. There is no mayhem in this picture. It's a very peaceful picture of a person falling headfirst from the World Trade Center. I know that sounds cold, but that's what it is.