Watching the World Change: The Stories Behind the Images of 9/11

by David Friend

The terrorist attack on the World Trade Center was the most universally observed news event in human history. That the event was so visual is owing to the people who, facing disaster, took photographs of imperiled office workers, horrified tourists, professional photographers risking their lives. Conceived by Osama bin Laden as the toppling of an image of America right before the world’s eyes, the tragedy swiftly came to be defined by photography, as families posted snapshots of their loved ones, police sought terrorists’ faces on security-camera videotapes, and officials recorded the devastation and identified the dead.
In Watching the World Change , David Friend tells the stories behind fifty of the images that altered our sense of our world forever—from the happenstance shots taken by bystanders as the first tower was struck to the scene of three firemen raising the Stars and Stripes at the site. He tells unforgettable stories of photographers and rescuers, victims and survivors. He shows how advances
in television, digital photography, and the Internet produced an effect whereby more than two billion people saw the terrible events as they happened. He explores the controversy about whether images of 9/11 are redemptive or exploitative; and he shows how photographs help us to witness, to grieve, and finally to understand the unimaginable.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Photography, Politics

464 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

David Friend is an editor, author, and award-winning documentary producer with a career spanning journalism, photography, and film. Since 1998, he has been the editor of creative development at Vanity Fair, following his tenure as Life magazine’s director of photography. His work has shaped major journalistic projects, including the 2005 Vanity Fair story that revealed FBI insider Mark Felt as “Deep Throat,” the confidential Watergate source. He also played a key role in expanding Vanity Fair into books, e-books, television, and digital media, launching VanityFair.com.
As an author, Friend has explored cultural and historical themes in books such as Watching the World Change: The Stories Behind the Images of 9/11 (2006), The Naughty Nineties (2017), and two volumes on human existence, The Meaning of Life and More Reflections on the Meaning of Life. In the realm of documentary film, he is an Emmy- and Peabody-winning producer, with projects including Lakota Nation vs. United States (2023), MLK/FBI (2021), and the widely broadcast CBS prime-time special 9/11.
Beyond journalism and film, Friend has covered conflicts in Afghanistan, Lebanon, and the Middle East, coedited 13 Vanity Fair books, and curated photography exhibitions on three continents. His poetry has been published in The New Yorker, further highlighting the breadth of his creative work.

Reviews

[Skyring · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Pentagon was attacked on the same day, and a fourth airliner was hijacked and crashed at the same time, but it was the attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Centre which dominated the television and print media. It's what we were looking at on CNN, and the other two planes were just items on the ticker in comparison.

That's because of the images. The photographs, the videos, the webcams. The planes endlessly looping into the towers, the smoke rising, the collapses, the dust clouds, the wreckage, the shocked faces and flowers and flags.

Compelling viewing. I know I watched with horror that night, as an episode of West Wing ended in tragedy and crisis and turned into real life. It was nearly dawn before I got to bed.

Along the way I had my own reality check - I went to the Empire State Building webcam, a favorite site of mine, aimed the thing downtown and there they were, on fire as I watched.

David Friend has told the story of the photographs, the videos, the webcams that awed, angered, horrified and inspired. Watching the World Change is 434 pages that not only tells the stories, but traces the way news gathering and reporting has evolved. The 9/11 attacks occurred just as digital cameras and cellphones were starting to become ubiquitous. Still pricey, but out there and involved. Nowadays, we watch news unfold on Twitter and Facebook and YouTube, but in 2001, they were still to come.

The book contains a colour photograph section, in which many of the images discussed in the text are shown. And striking they are. Everyone knows "The Falling Man", in which a curiously calm man is caught in mid-fall between the two towers. Just a man in his last moments of life, the stark cladding of the doomed buildings a backdrop. Death in the modern age.

Many others are included, moving and curious and stark. I think the one that hits me hardest is a candid shot of a group of emergency workers hauling away the body of a chaplain. The dead man peaceful, apparently asleep, the faces of the five big men carrying him studies in grief and determination, the dust and smoke of the disaster everywhere.

The chance shots - the video camera pointed up at precisely the moment of impact. The photograph of a crowd gathered to watch, the cameraman turning his back on the blazing buildings unaware as he snapped the shutter that the first tower had just begun to collapse, the sound still three seconds away, but the sight hitting the onlookers like a hammer. The group of people almost casual picnickers on the banks of the East River while disaster unfolds behind them.

Some photographs became famous, their subjects following on fame's path. I remember the photograph of fireman Mike Kehoe climbing the stairs to fight the fire far above. "Poor bloke," I thought, "he must have died in the collapse, and been aware that he was doomed."

But still he carried his equipment up past the line of evacuees. Happily he survived, and his story joins those of the photographers.

The last image is one that has become an icon. Like the famous flag-raising above Iwo Jima, this one happened by chance, even though the composition is similar. A tilted flagpole, a team of servicefolk raising the flag for morale, the flag's symbols a contrast, here in colour against the dust and wreckage behind.

This is a remarkable book, in itself an examination of a moment in history, a look at how we see news, how we react, how the pictures flashed around the world have human stories. These images, these people, these stories, they are legends of our time.

--Skyring

[Selah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinarily brilliant, lucid, and deeply moving. The sheer scope and breadth covered is literally awesome. Beautiful portrayal of an essentially human tragedy, and the ripple affects across the world in the aftermath. Seriously phenomenal book! Powerfully candid and far-reaching.

[Debra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some books should come with a warning, read only in private and crying may ensue. Friend has revisited 9/111 and the many anecdotes of courage that occurred that day. While his focus was on photojournalists, photographers, and photography, he also recounted stories of those who died that day such as Rick Rescorla who amazingly saved so many lives by planning and preparing for just such an event.

Friend also discussed the importance of photos, not just moving images, in interpreting our reaction and understanding of the events that occurred that day. In general I think he did a good job.

The book is well written, engaging although I would never call it entertaining. It isn't meant to entertain but to enlighten. Well documented and indexed.

Worth reading. Just have a box of tissue handy.

[Liane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sobering, thought-provoking, sad. Really, here are the stories behind the 9/11 pictures. The stories behind the fatalities, the stories behind the survivors. The family that enlarged a "jumper" picture to try and identify their son because they never received any remains. It wasn't him, but they did identify him hanging out a north tower window assisting a woman. That was comforting to them. These are the heartbreaking stories everyone should know, even 10 years out of this 9/11 nightmare. As hard as it is to read and process, it is a tribute to those that left the world that day. Never forget indeed.....

[Adrian]

When Friend focuses on individual's stories of what happened on Sept. 11th he's excellent, including the strange tale of the WTC flag. But when he digresses into a discussion of the importance of visual media and the iconography of photographs, he loses me. I don't get what he's on about. Also very prone to sentimentality.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm glad the author chose the writing style of taking each day separately to reveal the day's events and subsequent ramifications for years to come. At times, it was a difficult read as it, of course, brings back so many memories completely forgotten about. Yet, it was touching as well. That day will never be forgotten.

[Bridget · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very interesting and sad account of the events from 9/11. It was told by the people that survived it. It is a living history of the unbelievable tragedy in our US history.

[Bryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing analysis of the famous 911 pictures and how photography impacts us. It includes a history of photography, all the way up to the digital/internet age.

[Mike S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Watching the World Change is a book that is about the images and videos taken during and after the 9/11 attacks. The book was written by David Friend and published in 2006. The book focuses strictly on the images out of New York. In the foreword, the author says that was because he is based in New York and that is where most of the images from the day came from. The book is not an image by image analysis. In the middle of the book the author does include several pages of images that he does discuss throughout the book. But, the book really talks about the impact of the images and videos from that day and how those impacted the response of the nation to the attacks.

The hardcover version of the book has just under 350 pages of substantive text and then about 60 pages of endnotes that refer to various sources, and an index. The best part of the book is when the author is telling the human stories about the people involved, including people who were killed, people who survived, and people who were left behind. The chapters in the book correspond to the dates from 9/11 through 9/17 but the author does not limit what he discusses in the chapter to what was happening on the particular date. For example, in the 9/16 chapter he starts out talking about that day and then discusses the wars that occurred months and years later. While I do think that the book would have been a little better if it included more images, included the images in the chapter text, and told the story behind a specific image right after it was shown, the book is still very good and worth the time to read.

[False · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I read a review of this book, it seemed to be more photography book--images of 9/11 with more history behind the actual photography, and while there was some of that, it wasn't as all inclusive as I had hoped it would be. Yes, he interviews the photographers and gives us more history, but there are also sections within the book on photography as visual history and politics and emergency services and the visual as a recorded history device and so much more. I am in the process this year of reading all of David Friend's work which is how I stumbled on this book. It wasn't what I expected, but it was well-researched and well written.

[Susan Liston · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the story of many individual photographs taken on 9/11 and their photographer. And when that's what it sticks to, its terrific, (although as with all 9/11 books, it's a bit much for me to read more than a little in one sitting.) The author does tend to go off on a variety of tangents. A lot of these pictures I've seen a million times over the years and knew nothing about who took them and under what circumstances. (small caveat ---there are a minimal amount of pictures actually in the book)

[Valerie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading the stories behind the images that were discussed in the book. 9/11/01 was a horrific day that no American, especially New Yorkers, will forget. I knew this book would have really sad parts when I picked it up. So I didn't mind the sentimentality at times. What I didn't like was Friends' political ramblings. He has a right to his opinions, and some of his opinions I agree with, but I felt that they took away from the stories. Overall this was just an okay read.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book, but I expected it to contain a lot more photos.

[Chelsey Langland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Friend used to work for Life magazine, and was, at the time this book was written, at Vanity Fair. The book is part story behind the images - where the photographers were, how they got the images, etc. and part commentary on how 9/11 was such a widely-viewed event, in part because of advances in digital technology.

There were some interesting stories here - most notably the photographer who took "The Falling Man" photo that many papers refused to run (it later spawned a documentary, which I've seen). The last bit of the book was dedicated to the background and aftermath of "The Shot" - the photograph of the firefighters raising the flag. I had no idea, but there was a ton of fighting and even lawsuits over that photograph, its subsequent licensing, and the money that was made.

This was an interesting read. It was written in 2006, so a lot of references felt dated. He did say, though, that if 9/11 had happened 4 or 5 years later there would have been a lot more video produced, taken by people on their phones, and it would have been instantly transmitted outside via Internet. Those capabilities really didn't exist in 2001.

I had just finished this book when the Boston marathon bombing happened, and it felt really relevant when there were so many immediately iconic photographs taken, and then instantly uploaded so that we were really watching it happen.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely an interesting and provocative account of September 11th and its aftermath in images. However, I think Friend spends too much time on recounting the experiences of various photographers without linking that to a larger analysis. He starts to correct this imbalance at the end, but he never really integrates these things, so the book always feels sort of scattered.