When you’re flying above a dense and diverse environment like Manhattan, there is little time to reflect on what you are seeing below. Only in retrospect can you savor moments and see what you had been capturing with instinct. Thus it is with this photograph, where you can see people looking like so many black ants crowded around the square fountains that were once the footprint of the World Trade Center. I live in a small town in New Jersey, with only 150 kids in each graduating class at the high school. It’s a commuter suburb, and at the train station here is a plaque for the seven parents who went to work on September 11 and never came back. In my town, every kid goes to school with somebody who lost their mother or father that day, and the loss is personal. The title of the memorial installation is “Reflecting Absence,” and from above you can see the magnetism of this elegant memorial that has transformed Ground Zero into a spiritual place.
—George Steinmetz
Just one of the photographers who responded to a request of National Geographic senior photo editor Jessie Wender to submit photos of their own work which they felt portrayed New York City since that fateful day of 11 SEP 2001.
Please go to the nationalgeographic.com to view the rest of the submissions.