Richard Drew has spoken about the instinctive moment he captured the September 11 photograph known as “Falling Man,” revealing he did not even see the image clearly until he returned to his office.
Drew, 77, who has spent 51 years as a photographer for the outlet, was not at the World Trade Center when American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower at 8:46 a.m. On September 11, 2001. He was covering a maternity fashion show in Midtown Manhattan when his newsroom called with the news. “‘A plane has hit the World Trade Center,’ very calmly,” he recalled’ Sunday Morning.
The veteran photographer dove into the subway and resurfaced at the southern tip of Manhattan, where he began shooting almost immediately. “The minute I came out of the subway,” he said. His approach to the job was instinctive rather than considered: “It’s all reflexive. You just do it.”
Drew was photographing multiple people falling from the building when he simply held his camera up and let it fire off frames as they fell. He did not consciously compose the shot at all. “I have, I think, eight or nine frames of this gentleman falling, and the camera just happened to cycle in that time when he was completely vertical,” he said. “I didn’t see that picture really until I got back to the office.”
The image ran in newspapers the following day and provoked strong reactions, with many readers finding it too distressing to look at. The identity of the man falling from the towers has never been officially confirmed, though journalists have since narrowed it down to two possibilities: Jonathan Eric Briley and Norberto Hernandez, whose names sit just one apart on the parapets of the 9/11 Memorial.
Singer Elton John was a notable exception to the widespread discomfort with the photograph, later buying it for his personal collection. He said it was “the most beautiful image of something so tragic,” adding, “It’s probably one of the most perfect photographs ever taken.”
Weeks after the attacks, while Drew was still photographing the aftermath, his daughter called him. “She says, ‘Dad, I just wanna tell you that I love you,'” he recalled. He said she still calls him every September 11, wherever he is, for the same reason: “Because I might not have survived.”
Drew also helped identify a separate victim from his photographs after a man contacted the AP believing he recognised what his missing fiancée had been wearing that day. Looking through the images together, the man confirmed it was her.
Drew has previously won the Pulitzer Prize for his photography.