Reflection On The 9/11 Memorials

For this exercise I took around ninety photos over the course of an hour and a half, attempting to portray some of the happenings and elements at the 9/11 Memorial. Out of all these photos I took, I chose these four because they display how expansive the memorial is, in terms of meaning and significance. Some of my other photos are interesting and portray many of the elements I am interested in, such as people touching the memorial, however, these few stuck out and seemed unique from the rest. Although, it should be noted that all four involve the theme of ‘interaction.’ The pictures depict other ways that I did not initially understand as the memorial’s space and how this could shape the guests interaction.
For the first photo, in terms of what the memorial is,
I originally saw just the actual pools themselves as part of the memorial, however, the more I have come to the field, I see that to view only the pools as the memorial is inaccurate. The buildings, while not perhaps purposely built as a memorial, nevertheless, serve that function. Clearly understanding this helps to portray a holistic picture of the block which the Memorial rests. The second photo is an older white woman, in her sixties it seems, walking along the memorial name panel. It is the first time I had noticed a specific object associated with religion, Catholicism in particular, being used at the memorial. My other times I did not notice crosses, stars, or any other object related with that type of imagery. Usually, flags and flowers are the typical symbolic objects used in conjunction with the memorial. The third photo was a middle aged white man, eating at the Memorial. Here, I see a type of interaction that was not a part of my conventional understanding of interaction, but yet still prevalent among guests. Eating does happen on the official memorial grounds, but most of the time this eating is not done by people who are busy taking photos. I believe this difference allows me to discern New Yorkers from non-New Yorkers. Lastly, my final picture was my favorite. Again, after coming to the memorial other times, I noticed the heavy weapons a couple of the police officers carry. This memorial is not the only place where they carry these weapons, for Times Square has officers doing the same. Nevertheless, seeing them with these large guns is intimidating. Back in Louisiana, I have never encountered officers with such weapons. Nevertheless, this obviously tells us about how the NYPD and the New York City government interpret the area as possibly a high risk target for violent activity.
On a whole, I enjoyed working with my camera, although I do wish my picture quality was better.
Zooming in to see far away details, which could provide more information on the surrounding elements, would be helpful. My strategy was my usual one. I walked in circles around the pools, looking for people or other things that could reveal more about the memorial. My editing process was nothing extensive. I cropped a little bit of my second image, however, I kept most of them the same. I did not see a major need to edit. The photo backgrounds were necessary to capture the full image. In addition, since I did not use photos where the individual’s face was particularly in frame, I felt no reason to blot them out. Overall, I thought this was a good ethnographic method, however, photography does fail to capture the sound of the memorial, that perpetual falling of water. That specific sound does add to the memorial experience. I will have to try out video recording next time to see if this is better or worse. Although, for video recording I think I would need better equipment and more time, at least to be able to record what exactly I want, such as higher angles and prolonged framing of the
guests.