Mark Zannoni Photography

September 11

As today marks the 20th anniversary of that fateful day, I thought I’d share a few images, which contribute to the documentation of September 11. I captured, as far as I know, the first image on film of the events of the day. An FDNY training activity in Tribeca at the time caught a different angle, but on video vs. film.

I was walking down Fulton Street, heading to the World Trade Center, when I heard a plane and then the boom. As a photographer, I always had a camera on me and instantly grabbed it. I was able to capture the impact fireball and the initial debris falling to the ground. The image was taken within seconds of the impact. This is the first shot below. In the second shot, perhaps a second or so later, some initial impact debris can be seen falling, but the fireball is no longer visible, obscured by the rising smoke cloud.

A lesson at that time, though no longer relevant in the era of digital photography, was to have space on a roll of film. The first image below was frame #35 of 36 on Kodak film. And though I reloaded after the second image with a new roll (as I always carried extra film with me), the later images—though striking—were far less unique. Hence, I post only the first two images shot.

(The first image—the more striking image of the two—is also in The New York Times photo archives and a print copy was donated to the New York Historical Society Museum in 2002.)

—Mark Zannoni, September 11, 2021