September 11 2001
Bill Biggart’s Final Pictures
New York, Tuesday, September 11. Two planes had just hit the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. Photographer Bill Biggart, equipped with three cameras including one digital, left his Manhattan apartment and headed to the smoking southern tip of the city. He never returned, buried in the collapse of the second tower. His body was recovered four days later, before returned his personal effects to his wife Wendy. His photographer friend, Chip East, was convinced that no images remained. The falling debris crushed Biggart’s cameras, exposing their film to light. The digital camera was covered in ashes. Strangely, inside, the memory card had remained intact. Trembling, he inserts the card into his phone. Nothing. He tries again.
It’s a miracle. The emotion is indescribable. Three folders open containing almost 150 pictures taken by his friend near Ground Zero in the last minutes of his life. The first pictures, taken while crossing Greenwich Village, reveal another one of his passions: he loved trees. But the tree are soon replaced by clouds of dust blown apart by a stream of emergency vehicles, adding to the sense of asphyxiation. The North Tower was still standing as Bill Biggart approached, pushing deeper into the cloud. No one else could have taken this final image, in the apocalyptic heart of September 11: the ruins of the Marriott Hotel, before it was engulfed by the implosion of the second tower. Time: 10:28:24 AM. Bill Biggart was killed at 10:30.
From Dirck Halstead
photos by Bill Biggart (1947-2001)
40 ans de photojournalisme – Génération Sipa
Michel Setboun and Sylvie Dauvillier
Layout: Grégory Bricout
© 2012, Éditions de La Martinière
239 pages – 39 euros
