This coming Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of the attacks by al-Qaeda on the United States of America, and New York especially. Many iconic images depicting the terror of that day sit steadfast in all of our minds, but what is wrong with a photographer portraying a different kind of moment on that day?

The photograph is without a doubt controversial because it crosses boundaries some might say shouldn’t be crossed. It captures a moment when a group of New Yorkers sit chatting in the sun in a park in Brooklyn, seemingly unmoved by the events unfolding behind them.

In the background, across the blue water, smoke bellows and debris rises above lower Manhattan from the place where the two World Trade Centre towers were struck by hijacked aeroplanes.

The majority of our memory banks are littered with images of collapsed structures, killing, fire, smoke, suicidal jumpers and fear-gripped faces from the day that claimed nearly 3 000 people.

Thomas Hoepker, a senior figure at Magnum Photos cooperative, chose not to publish it in 2001, and to exclude it from a book of Magnum pictures about the events of 9/11.

Only in 2006, on the fifth anniversary of the attacks, did the image make its way into a book, causing immediate controversy.

Immediately after its first publication, New York Times critic and columnist, Frank Rich, wrote about it:

The young people in Mr Hoepker’s photo aren’t necessarily callous. They’re just American.

It’s claimed Rich’s comment reflects the nature of the American peoples ability to move on and put things to history.

So why is it so controversial? It’s an ethical debate.

Walter Sipser, the guy in shades in the right of the picture, said he and his girlfriend, depicted as sunbathing on the wall, were in fact “in a profound state of shock and disbelief,” and not as is shown, chilling out.

Of course this is where photography is able to cheat its viewer. Hoepker, they both complained, had photographed them without permission in a way that misrepresented their feelings and behaviour.

Still, the photograph is now emerging as one of the more creative depictions of the events of that fateful day, despite whatever was really going on in that frozen moment of time.

[Source: Guardian]