The 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks was yesterday. CBS News’s feature profiles a photographer who documented the horror of September 11 and captured one of the attacks’ defining images. Twenty-five years later, he is reflecting on what capturing that image meant and what its continued significance represents.

THE SPECIFIC ROLE OF DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY  

Photographs from September 11, 2001 are among the most widely circulated images in American history. They serve a specific documentary function: they preserve the specific visual reality of what happened for people who were not there and for future generations for whom the attacks are historical rather than experienced. The photographer who captured a defining image of the attacks has lived for 25 years with the specific experience of having been present and having documented what others could not see for themselves.

He was there. He photographed it. People who were not there have seen what he saw because he had a camera. Twenty-five years later, he is still asked what it means. That is the specific relationship between a photographer and a defining historical image.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT  

▸  CBS feature — the full documentary portrait of the photographer’s reflection

▸  Anniversary photography — the continued circulation of 9/11 images as historical documentation

CONFIDENCE: HIGH

CBS Sunday Morning 9/11 anniversary photographer defining image reflection 25 years from CBS confirmed reporting.

SOURCES

▸  CBS Sunday Morning — 9/11 anniversary photographer September 13 2026