An amazing German photographer, Born in Munich in 1936. His photos were known for having stylish colour photo features. His name was
Thomas Hoepker he was one of the many photographers on the 9/11 attack that day
that took many photographs but there was one photograph in particular that
stood out of the many that he took that day.
The photography wasn’t even published until years later after the 9/11 event
but still after
it had been published it caused so much controversial. That when Hoepker had
the image up on a wall in an exhibition and the front cover of his book that
was with the show, he didn’t know it was going to have so many questions asked
about it, from people viewing the exhibition and from the press.
No one would have thought that this one photograph that he took that day would cause so much chaos. Everyone had a different opinion
about this photo especially the photographer, people looking at the photo and
the people in the photograph too. However I did quite liked the fact that everyone
had their own opinion on this particular photograph because if everyone had the
same opinion then it wouldn’t be as a popular photo as it is was and the
photographer probably wouldn’t be as well-known as he is either.
In the photograph Thomas Hoepker took on 11 September 2001,
a group of New Yorkers sit chatting in the sun in a park in Brooklyn.
Behind them, across clear blue water, a terrible
cloud of smoke rises above lower Manhattan from the place where the
two twin towers were struck by hijacked airliners this same morning the photograph was taken.
This image that Hoepker took was a decisive moment and in my opinion if Thomas hadn't taken the photo then someone else might of had instead. He was passing by making his way to Manhattan, out of the coner of his eye he saw this scene, stepped out of his car took the photo, then carried on making his way getting closer to Manhattan. Even Hoepker thought that even his own photography that he took was really confusing to be published in 2001 thats why he kept until he decided to publish it later.
One of the people that where in the photograph that Hoepker had taken said that Thomas Hoepker
never asked permission from the five people to take a photograph of them in that
scene. Walter Sipser said this, he also said that Hoepker took the photo of
him, his girlfriend that were sitting and talking to the strangers about the horrible scene, while
behind them, that tragic event happened. Earlier the people had watched what happened and couldn’t believe; they
had watched the Twin Towers collapse and had gone down to the waterfront. They
were all in a state of shock and disbelief about what happened as everyone
else was too. Now had Hoepker gone over
to the group and asked permission to take the photograph he would have heard a
conversation about what just happened and the group talking about it, if that
would have happened I believe that the photo would have given the right
impression and not the wrong one.
Thomas Hoepker was a memeber at the Magnum Photos and also the president from 2003 to 2006. For most of his career of being a photographer he used a a Lecia camera or Lecia
cameras, in around 1970s he began to use Single-lens reflex camera too as well
as his Lecia camera.
