Memorium

January 13, 2009 ·

Michael Reichmann


This photograph was taken and first published just a couple of weeks after 9/11.
Then, as now, it encapsulates for me the loss that we all suffered that day.
It continues to serve as my memorial to those that died and all we lost.

Just a few days after the horrors of September 11, 2001, I had to travel to Florida due to a family medical emergency. I had been devastated by the attack on theWorld Trade Centerand had seemingly lost all interest in doing photography. But, more through force of habit than desire I brought along a camera.

On my second morning in Florida, still wresting with the daily onslaught of distressing images on CNN, I took a melancholy pre-dawn walk on the beach. As I returned to the all-but-deserted hotel where we were staying I came across this scene of empty deck chairs facing into the rising sun.


Florida Chairs‚ Palm Beach, September 2001

Photographed with a Leica M6 and 35mm f/1.4 Summilux lens on Fuji Reala 100

It struck me that this image encompasses the emptiness and loss that we have all suffered‚ and yet at the same time the hope that dawn always brings. Not to be too sentimental about it, but it stirred me to return to doing what I love and do best, photography. Life, pleasure and art must continue, though we also must not forget what was lost.

‚ Michael

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Michael Reichmann is the founder of the Luminous Landscape. Michael passed away in May 2016. Since its inception in 1999 LuLa has become the world's largest site devoted to the art, craft, and technology of photography. Each month more than one million people from every country on the globe visit LuLa.

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