Thread by @BuzzFeed

"I just remember it was so strange, him saying to everyone “He’s got it. He’s got the picture.” As if he couldn’t believe his own eyes" buzzfeednews.com/article/piapet…

"My wife, the photographer Rebecca Norris Webb — who has had little experience photographing conflict or violence — said she wanted to go with me. I balked. Shouldn’t she stay in Brooklyn, away from the chaos? Perhaps I shouldn’t even go. (1/4)

What if we were separated and unable to communicate during another wave of violence? So, we chose to stay together and do one of the few things we know how to do — respond with a camera. (2/4)

Even now, this image continues to pose questions about the future: Just what kind of world will our children inherit? (3/4)

Moreover, looking back at this photograph of a mother and child, I’m not sure I would have seen this particular photograph, with its note of tenderness and looming tragedy, if Rebecca had not been with me.

— Alex Webb, photographer for Magnum (4/4)

"I only remember seeing the smoke and running toward the towers as they were collapsing. Everyone else was running past me. (1/3)

I left my bike a few blocks away and then slowly began to confront the eerie absence of the streets filled with debris and tried to make sense of what I could see had remained. (2/3)

The primary image for me of all those I took that day is still the sculpture in Liberty Plaza, which captured what I was feeling — it was as if the whole world had stopped."

—Susan Meiselas, photographer at Magnum (3/3)

"[James] Nachtwey heard the first plane hit, because he lived in South Street Seaport, which is very, very close, and grabbed all of his gear and went out and started photographing. Nobody saw him after the second tower fell, so I was really nervous. (1/4)

Then he walked to the Time building from downtown — he was covered in dust. When he walked down the hallways at the time building, there were these dusty footprints on the floor everywhere. (2/4)

He has that picture of the church [from when the first tower came down]. That's the one I always remember. (3/4)

We had to fight to get that in the magazine because they thought the symbolism [was too much]. And I said, “What? That's exactly the point.”

—MaryAnne Golon, Picture Editor at Time Magazine (4/4)

Click here to read more about the devastating and iconic 9/11 photos 20 years after they were taken buzzfeednews.com/article/piapet…