Joel Meyerowitz - Aftermath

This September marks the 10th anniversary of 911. Joel Meyerowitz was the only photographer allowed on the scene at Ground Zero on a daily basis, and he photographed the site for 9 months. Recently, I have started researching this event, and have complied some articles and viddies about his project.

National September 11 Memorial and Museum: Clifford Chanin (Senior Program Advisor) interviews Joel Meyerowitz - Part One (embedded above), two, three, four, five, six, and seven - a remarkable one on one interview.

I first discovered Joel Meyerowitz' work in my Color Photography class, his Cape Cod project was shown for its use of mixed light and out of balance light on daylight balanced film. I fell in love with the images and have followed his career ever since then. (Thanks Dr. Dik)

Joel was one of the first photographers to embrace color photography as a medium. His use of color transforms his photographs of Ground Zero from merely documents to works of art.  This juxtaposition between beauty and disaster makes the project compelling.

When researching his work at Ground Zero, I found it ironic that he was on Cape Cod when the attack happened and it took him almost a week to return to NYC. When he finally got back to town, he went to the WTC and had a strange encounter with the police that pushed him to gain access to the site and start making images:

. . . Early the next morning I went down to the site, only to find that the whole area had been cordoned off with cyclone fencing draped with tarpaulins, above which one could see smoke rising in the distance. There wasn’t much to look at as I stood in a crowd on the corner of Chambers and Greenwich, about four blocks north of Ground Zero, but out of a lifetime of habit I raised my Leica to my eye, simply to get the feel of what was there. Whack! Someone behind me poked me sharply in the shoulder. “No photographs buddy, this is a crime scene!”  I whipped around and found myself face to face with a belligerent female police officer. I was furious — both at being hit and at the absurdity of the command.  “Listen, this is a public space,” I replied. “Don’t tell me I can’t look through my camera!” But she came right back at me with “You give me trouble and I’ll take that camera away from you!” “No you won’t,” I said.  “Suppose I was the press?” “The press? There’s the press,” she said, imperiously jerking a thumb over her shoulder at about a dozen TV cameramen and reporters, roped off by yellow police tape, halfway up the block.“When are they going in?” I asked.  “Never,” she said. “I told you, this is a crime scene. No photography!”

The images were published in a book entitled “Aftermath: World Trade Center Archive.” and the quote above is an excerpt from the book, by way of an article in Today Weekend edition 9/8/2006.

Another short article about the project is from Photo District News; this article talks about the lack of funding for the project and how Joel had to borrow money and eventually sell his apartment in Greenwich Village just to keep working. The article also talks about his relationship to the people on the site, his struggle to maintain access, and the reverence of the workers when they would find the remains of a person.

Additional information:

Slide show of the images

another viddie:

Reflections of Ground Zero - Part One, two, & three (narrator: Jon Snow) - documentary with footage, interviews with Joel, etc.

Joel Meyerowitz website

other articles about his work