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I was asleep when the first plane hit. At the time, I lived just four blocks from the World Trade Center, right next to a hospital, fire station, and New York City Police HQ. The sirens woke me up. They were nonstop. I turned on the television and saw one of the towers on fire. As I watched the second plane hit the South Tower on TV, I also heard it because I lived so close.
I worked for the Associated Press (AP) as a photo editor. I knew, as the closest staff member, that I had to go out and document it. I got dressed, threw a movie in my camera bag, and ran to the World Trade Center. Much of photography is like muscle memory. Even in a situation like this, your body knows exactly what to do. I remember a cop asking me, “How can you take pictures? I told him, “I have to document this. This is history.
This was taken on Fulton Street between Church and Broadway. I remember looking at the south tower through my viewfinder and seeing it start to fall. I fired a shot, then someone shouted, “RUN! I ran, tripped and fell, then hid behind the car you see on the left. The ground began to rumble, the car began to shake, and then a huge cloud of thick dust blew through the streets. It was full of sharp, heavy sediment. Everything has become silent. Then I started to choke and couldn’t breathe. I had dust in my eyes, nose and mouth. I pulled up my T-shirt to cover my face. For a moment, I thought we were buried alive. Then I saw the car lights flashing.
I started to photograph people walking on the street. The people in this photo have passed me. We did not talk. I don’t know if anyone was speaking. We were all in shock. What a lot of people don’t think about when they see this picture is how much I was like them, covered in dust, barely able to comprehend the fact that I almost died. I went on autopilot. I kind of changed the film and changed the lens, but I can’t remember anything. I was shocked. Running didn’t even occur to me. It took me a few minutes to actually move. But I think my camera saved my sanity. With him in front of my face, I was an observer, detached, watching it unfold. It helped me function and stay focused.
Someone handed me a water bottle and a mask and that’s when I came out of the daze. I started walking home, happy to be alive. I looked back and took more shots of the still burning north tower. Later I took a self portrait in the bathroom, then I mixed the chemicals and started developing the film. I found out that I had two black and white rolls and one color, which was odd as I wasn’t shooting in color at the time. I don’t know how this roll got into my bag. This color did not offer many advantages. After the collapse, you couldn’t even tell what race the people were. We were all gray.
Just as I was going to develop the film, the north tower collapsed and a lot of dust entered my apartment. A friend from AP called me to check on me. When I told her that I was out to take pictures, she shouted in the office, “Gulnara was here! Another editor shouted, “Get to the office ASAP! The trains weren’t running, so I walked about 40 blocks to AP photo editor Madge Stager’s apartment with the reservoir of two wet film rolls in hand. We dried it in front of a fan. I was still covered in dust. I didn’t even think about taking a shower.
That day I made the decision to focus on people, but it was painful and intrusive to photograph injured people. I saw people jump. It was so terrifying that I couldn’t lift my camera. I think this image shows how dangerous and traumatic it was for people to even be near the towers.
I have some health issues as a result of the exposure and have been monitored by the WTC Health Department at Mount Sinai Hospital. But this image helped me heal from the mental trauma I experienced. It made me realize that being there was not for nothing: September 11 changed my life. It was the start of a journey to discover the meaning of my life and what I was here to do.
CV of Gulnara Samoilova
Born: Ufa, Republic of Bashkortostan, Russia, 1964.
Qualified: Moscow Polytechnic; International Center of Photography (ICP), New York.
Influences: Marie Ellen Mark.
High point: “Publish my first book, Women Street Photographers, with Prestel Publishing. “
Low point: “PTSD following September 11”.
The best advice: “Follow your passion, the rest will follow.”
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