Andrea Booher’s first observation when she got to Ground Zero was how dark it was.
“They didn’t have any lighting set up and it was like we were looking into this abyss,” said Booher.
Booher, an Aspen-based photojournalist, was on assignment in Utah shooting goats when she got the call to head to New York. It was late on Sept. 12.
What Booher was about to document would be collected and displayed more than a decade later at the memorial and museum honoring the tragedy.
One photo in particular shows the remnants of one of the World Trade Center Towers. There’s dust floating in the air and rubble is littered across the ground. In the midst of all this carnage, sunlight is streaming through.
“I often see the best in human nature,” Booher said.
She was tasked with documenting carnage in a visually striking way.
It was too hard not to be involved, Booher said. There was only one situation when she wouldn’t take pictures — when bodies were found.
“I didn’t want to create any more hurt or any more pain by photographing a body part and having somebody wonder if that was a family member or a friend,” she said.
The images will be on display at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum later this month.
