On September 11th, 2001, I was 8 blocks away when the planes hit the World Trade Towers. It was a picture perfect day with the last thing on anyone's mind being a terrorist attack. Quickly evacuated from Police Headquarters where I worked, I left without my camera to a sea of confusion with both towers on fire. As I watched the towers burn and people running and crying and panicking, I wanted so much to document what was going on around me. I found myself naked without my camera, and I realize now that the camera would have shielded me from the reality of the moment by distancing me away from the chaos. Instead I stood alone and watched the horror around me. Then the first tower fell; and the smoke and dust forced me uptown in a crowd, and when the second tower fell, I felt as if this wasn't real anymore but a movie-like seeing the Titanic sinking on the screen. I wandered uptown in a daze truly unbelieving of what I just witnessed without my camera to protect me. A couple of years ago, I started working on my 9/11 project as a form of therapy. I used many of my old photographs to try to recreate that day in September. With my experience and the power of Photoshop, I have revisited that day to try to show you what I saw, how it felt, and what my 'left behind' camera didn't see.

Joseph Szkodzinski