9/12

I have mixed feelings about the proliferation of 9/11 images that have flooded the airwaves and print media these past few days. Nearly every story and image is powerful and moving but at a certain point you can begin to feel you're being used.

I was looking for a photograph that meant something more than re-visiting the past when Len Prince sent me this picture. It's an iPhone snap of a contact sheet that he had never tried to print or publish but ten years later the picture makes a lot of sense.

It was taken on 9/12/01 near Ground Zero and is of the back window of a smashed-up police car that had been blown on top of another car. Someone had scrawled the date in the dust of 9/11 as both a record and - I like to think - a hope. 9/11 as we know changed everything, but it's what we do with 9/12 that counts.

For a moment it seemed like 9/12 had brought about an amazing togetherness and spirit in this country, but it didn't take long to disintegrate and go awry. Let's try to make this 9/12 something better.