In the days following September 11, 2001, photographers were banned from Ground Zero, which had been officially declared a crime scene. Not one to fall at the first hurdle, Joel Meyerowitz persisted. “They can’t do this to us, I thought. No photographs meant no visual record of one of the most profound things ever to happen here,” the iconic American photographer writes in Where I Find Myself, published by Laurence King Publishing in association with Elephant. “[…] There needed to be a visual record of the aftermath.”
After much perseverance, Meyerowitz became the only photographer to gain continued access to the site over its nine-month transformation. Aftermath, the resulting body of work, depicts huge chunks of debris, intrepid emergency service men, women and dogs, and characters such as Eddie (shown here), who was “fresh out of jail” and “substantial yet cocky”, with characteristic warmth and humanity.
