Interesting Photo

August 23, 2006 2:21 PM

Pregnant Pause
posted by kirkaracha (51 comments total)

BAGnewsNotes analysis; from a Vanity Fair photo essay.
posted by kirkaracha at 2:21 PM on August 23, 2006

the greatest sin committed by George Bush was the hijacking of 9/11

Worth repeating.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:30 PM on August 23, 2006

.
posted by mattbucher at 2:34 PM on August 23, 2006

the greatest sin committed by Dick Cheney was 9/11
posted by stenseng at 2:40 PM on August 23, 2006

Those "rare scenes" in the Vanity Fair photo essay were stunning. The cognitive dissonance of this shot was mind-blowing.
posted by nickyskye at 2:41 PM on August 23, 2006

For some reason, nickyskye, I liked the fatalism in this photo.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:43 PM on August 23, 2006

Sheesh no matter who was President they would have done something different than you would have expected because no one expected the Spanish Inquisition 9/11.
posted by stbalbach at 2:43 PM on August 23, 2006

That photo, Blazecock, illustrates one of the things that infuriated me to no end that day. I was at my office in Manhattan and couldn't find a TV and so I ran into this gym and there were guys like this just hanging out, not running around, freaking out, not even watching TV, in fact they were kind of pissed that I was in such a hurry to get to the TV. And of course there were a handful of people with their headphones on furiously running or biking or whatever and I wanted to grab each one of them by the ears and say look at the TV you fucking idiot, our CITY is being destroyed and you are working on your ABs!
posted by mattbucher at 2:47 PM on August 23, 2006 [2 favorites has favorites]

They should have expected it. There was a great big note saying al-qaeda was going to do something on the briefing given to Bush that week. Of course, he didn't read it.
posted by nyxxxx at 2:48 PM on August 23, 2006

maybe i'm reading too much (or too little) into the text, but just because she didn't know a terrorist attack was going doesn't mean Daser didn't know there was a building on fire/smoking/etc in the background.
posted by pokermonk at 2:51 PM on August 23, 2006

Those "rare scenes" in the Vanity Fair photo essay were stunning. The cognitive dissonance of this shot was mind-blowing.

Good thing that guy had a fisheye lense. But yeah, crazy. And that shot was taken before the second tower was hit.
posted by delmoi at 3:01 PM on August 23, 2006

Holy shit, there's actually a photo of the first tower being hit?
posted by delmoi at 3:03 PM on August 23, 2006

Didnt the French film crew (making a docu on the NYFD) get film of the 1st tower being hit?
posted by the cuban at 3:07 PM on August 23, 2006

yeah, here it is (youtube)
posted by the cuban at 3:12 PM on August 23, 2006

Wow, everything seems so normal, I was like WTF is this pic about -- had to stare for a while before I saw the building in the back... what a great shot, pregnant woman, people dying, very surreal.
posted by jacob hauser at 3:12 PM on August 23, 2006

“look at the TV you fucking idiot, our CITY is being destroyed and you are working on your ABs!” - posted by mattbucher

Yeah, they probably should have been focusing on Lats on a Tuesday .
posted by Smedleyman at 3:16 PM on August 23, 2006

jacob hauser: "Wow, everything seems so normal, I was like WTF is this pic about -- had to stare for a while before I saw the building in the back... what a great shot, pregnant woman, people dying, very surreal."

Yeah. It's actually a better shot, I think, when ripped from its context and stuck up here, like kirkaracha did. The time you take putting together the interesting look on her face, then the distant smoke in the background, and finally the timestamp... it's like recognizing someone you know.
posted by koeselitz at 3:25 PM on August 23, 2006

You can't blame people for not grasping immediately the enormity of the situation. To anyone but the most paranoid or a few terrorism experts, it was inconceivable before that morning--we've been sheltered for so long in this country, and always ready to mock the broadcast news for making mountains out of molehills. I woke up to the clock radio--a plane had hit one of the Trade Towers--no details, and not an airliner, but a plane, and no mention that anyone had died. I figured a Cessna had nicked the building, and I turned the radio off and went about getting ready for work. In retrospect that seems horrible. In my car I heard what had happened, and I went home and sat for hours glued in front of the tv, frozen and tense in shock and fear.

But the relaxed body language of the people in the Brooklyn photos bothers me. Maybe it's a natural impulse to imagine that other people are more callous than we are. I can't help but think, 'how could they?', when for all I know they were horrible distraught.
posted by tula at 3:43 PM on August 23, 2006

that link from the cuban -- holy crap. Holy crap. Holy crap.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSOQ8pROBoo
posted by felix at 4:26 PM on August 23, 2006

It's actually a better shot, I think, when ripped from its context and stuck up here, like kirkaracha did.
So my little plan worked!
posted by kirkaracha at 4:30 PM on August 23, 2006

These photos are too small!
posted by geoff. at 4:32 PM on August 23, 2006

I was in the town of Kismet on Fire Island. It was one of the clearest and calmest days of the summer and you could clearly make out the Manhattan skyline 44 miles away. As usual on weekdays after Labor Day, the town was very quiet. We knew what was going on from the TV in the Kismet Inn, but stepping outside there was just silence and a distant, horizontal plume of smoke in front of which the neon-pink sail of a windsurfer floated back and forth.
posted by liam at 4:36 PM on August 23, 2006

Sheesh no matter who was President they would have done something different than you would have expected because no one expected the Spanish Inquisition 9/11.
posted by stbalbach at 2:43 PM PST

On what basis was no one "expecting" the events on 9/11?
posted by rough ashlar at 4:39 PM on August 23, 2006

Yeah, the YouTube video there is nearly impossible to watch without feeling just downtrodden afterwards.

To anyone but the most paranoid or a few terrorism experts, it was inconceivable before that morning--we've been sheltered for so long in this country...

Such as John Patrick O'Neill.
posted by smallerdemon at 4:50 PM on August 23, 2006

In the weeks following 9/11, America had more worldwide goodwill than we have had since World War Two. The citizens of Iran were holding candlelight vigils for our dead.

We had a chance, a brief chance, to take that tragedy and bring about a real change in the world. We could have done so many things to truly reduce the risk of terrorism in the world. We could have made things different, instead of just more of the same old shit.

We just needed a great man (or woman) at the helm.
posted by Malor at 4:52 PM on August 23, 2006 [2 favorites has favorites]

These images are wonderfully disturbing. Thanks, kirkaracha.
posted by cgc373 at 4:55 PM on August 23, 2006

On what basis was no one "expecting" the events on 9/11?

Everyone knows democrats aren't real people. It was entirely reasonable for Condi Rice and others to worry about the real threat facing our nation: We had ballistic test missiles just waiting to be built, fired, fired again at the one we just fired in order to knock the first one down, and then fail spectacularly to do so.
posted by delmoi at 5:04 PM on August 23, 2006

that link from the cuban -- holy crap. Holy crap. Holy crap.

Totally.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 5:05 PM on August 23, 2006

We had a chance, a brief chance, to take that tragedy and bring about a real change in the world. We could have done so many things to truly reduce the risk of terrorism in the world. We could have made things different, instead of just more of the same old shit.

Q) What can we do to help our country in light of 9/11?
A) Buy something. Buy a new car or truck.
posted by delmoi at 5:05 PM on August 23, 2006

I find it weird that people are offended by this image that Blazecock linked to. It is the one image that really reminds me of how I spent that day.

After watching the coverage on TV, myself and my friend Sarah didn't really know what to do with ourselves. So, like good college students, we went down to the coffee shop, which, ironically, was named Osama's (no connection.) We sat down in front with a bunch of our friends, and had a rather lengthy discussion which basically boiled down to, "What .... the.... fuck?" and "What are we supposed to do now?"

I mean, there we were, 5 or 6 young adults, dumbfounded, wondering what the fuck to do with this new world in which we were suddenly thrust. I'm sure we looked just like the people in that picture.
posted by Afroblanco at 5:15 PM on August 23, 2006

Afroblanco, we're reading body language that says they're unconcerned--not worried there might be more violence coming, not curious, not sad, not dumbfounded, like you say you and your friends were. But I'm betting/hoping our interpretation the body language is wrong.
posted by tula at 5:41 PM on August 23, 2006

""It's actually a better shot, I think, when ripped from its context and stuck up here, like kirkaracha did."
So my little plan worked!"

yup. shure did.
posted by lester at 6:01 PM on August 23, 2006

Dunno if it's occurred to anybody else, but W.H. Auden commented famously on this sort of disconnect.
posted by pax digita at 6:24 PM on August 23, 2006

we're reading body language that says they're unconcerned--not worried there might be more violence coming, not curious, not sad, not dumbfounded

So did I on first look. Then I looked again and connected with my (remembered) feeling that day: brokenness. An overwhelmed, distraught, disbelieving slump.
posted by Dreama at 6:58 PM on August 23, 2006

Auden's work is crazy apropos for 9/11. Consider the poem entitled September 1, 1939.

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
...
Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.
...
All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:07 PM on August 23, 2006

'the greatest sin committed by George Bush was the hijacking of 9/11'

I'm gonna have to go with the bombing, murder and dismemberment of civilians in the occupied territories.
posted by signal at 7:14 PM on August 23, 2006

Oh fuck. That's way longer than I thought it'd be.
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:16 PM on August 23, 2006

we're reading body language that says they're unconcerned--not worried there might be more violence coming, not curious, not sad, not dumbfounded

So did I on first look. Then I looked again and connected with my (remembered) feeling that day: brokenness. An overwhelmed, distraught, disbelieving slump.


Not to mention the helplessness and gnawing frustration of not knowing where your friends/cousins/spouses/siblings are who work there.
posted by bloomicy at 7:31 PM on August 23, 2006

...and I wanted to grab each one of them by the ears and say look at the TV you fucking idiot, our CITY is being destroyed and you are working on your ABs!

Dude, gotta get in shape for the fucking apocalypse.
posted by illovich at 7:33 PM on August 23, 2006

So does it make me "old" to be surprised that anyone has not seen the French filmmakers' 1st airplane movie? CBS made a huge deal about it (days and weeks of promotions and press) when they aired the special on March 10th, 2002.
posted by intermod at 7:34 PM on August 23, 2006

I had not ever seen that video of the first plane hitting the tower. It still just makes me sick to my stomach. I was pregnant, too on 9/11 and it really just ... well ... I don't even know how to describe it.
posted by thekilgore at 8:20 PM on August 23, 2006

Not yet realizing a terrorist attack was in progress, architect and amateur pilot Isabel Daser, eight months pregnant, asked a co-worker to take her portrait as a record of the day.

Give me a break. How retarded do you have to be not to notice the plane/smoke/building in the background? Jumbo jet pilots do not just fly into a skyscraper in New York. And given that this photograph is rather unremarkable (there, I said it), the claim that this is an "accidental" photograph seems rather self-serving on the part of the photographer.

The Vanity Fair and accompanying blog post (in the comments) are good, but this is a lame FPP, IMHO.
posted by dhammond at 8:57 PM on August 23, 2006

Give me a break. How retarded do you have to be not to notice the plane/smoke/building in the background?

I don't know much about new york to tell if that's tower one or two, but if it's the first tower to be hit, it's probably been less than 30 seconds between "Oh, a plane over Manhattan, how peculiar", and "OMG! IT'S BURNING!".

As it's someone at least semi-professional, I'd say the tower could be intact at the moment they decided to take the picture, and positioned, and by the moment they finally set aperture/granularity/whatever semi-professionals set in their cameras, the tower was at the state shown in the picture. Also, being someone who takes photography seriously, it isn't too far fetched to imagine they were too concentrated to notice the impact instantly. It's perfectly possible that photographer and pregnant woman only noticed the smoke immediately after the picture was taken.
posted by qvantamon at 9:24 PM on August 23, 2006

Oh, the artist is Dutch. He may not even have known at the time that planes don't usually fly over "New Amsterdam".
posted by qvantamon at 9:26 PM on August 23, 2006

OK. Let's take a moment to realize how the fuck I pulled from my ass that the artist is dutch and male. I'm rereading the thread, and have no idea where that came from.
posted by qvantamon at 9:31 PM on August 23, 2006

Wow...just wow...great series of photos that take you back to that day in a new way.
posted by rfbjames at 12:10 AM on August 24, 2006

Jeez, can't VF afford to serve up more than 30 kbytes per image?
posted by ryanrs at 1:47 AM on August 24, 2006

wow. maybe the first time in five years i've felt like i'm seeing a new perspective on that day. my computer has been in the same place in my house all this time, and it's odd to sit here, five years later, see these photos, and think back on the images of that morning.
posted by ab3 at 2:28 AM on August 24, 2006

It's very easy to have perfect empathy years after the world has come to recognized the awful moment of that day. People continuing with their lives, even as those lives are about to profoundly be altered, is not unusual or even remarkable.

What is remarkable are all the people above claiming outrage because the shock of tragedy had not affected everyone in the the first hour after the attack. It doesn't matter that some of these people were within sight of the burning towers. The significance of the news had not yet had time to sink in.

On the other hand, there are people who were not deeply affected by the events even days after. One of them, someone from whom I have grown very far apart, claimed that my crying after seeing the first tower fall must have been due to the fact that I lived nearer the WTC (Charlottesville, Virginia) that she who lived farther away (Madison, WI).

I realized that some people are simply disconnected from others and that there is no sense in being outraged. The people in the pictures above are likely unaware of what is transpiring even as they go about their conversations about sex, religion, falafel, break dancing, whatever.

In fact, they are much like we are as we go about our daily lives given what is going on in Iraq, Darfur, Bangladesh, North Korea, or even our own back yards.
posted by mistersquid at 3:33 AM on August 24, 2006

My claiming outrage is remarkable? Thanks!
posted by mattbucher at 9:41 AM on August 24, 2006

I was a school teacher (grade 6) that day. Man was that hard. This brings me back to those weird feelings of disconnect and caring and downplaying all at once.
posted by BrodieShadeTree at 3:16 PM on August 24, 2006