In a couple of days, it will be 10 years since I watched the world change. September 11 has become an iconic day for everyone. We remeber where we were in that moment when a plane went thru the World Trade Center. We remember the men and woman jumping to their deaths.  We remember how we thought it was the beginning of the end. But we also remember the herioc firemen raising a flag of hope on the ashes of Ground Zero. We would recover.

Today I lectured on the importance of remembering, to 180 high schoolers, who were 5-7 years old in 2001. Us adults remember the event differently. For me it was tragic, tear jerking and heart wrenching. For these kids, they were so young that they didn’t understand what was happening. Since then, they have grown up in a post 9/11 world. They have grown up during a time of war most of their life. For them it’s normal for a plane to go thru a building. That was NOT normal for me.

Photography is what allowed the world to see this event and what allows us to remember. As firemen saved people’s lives, heroic photojournalists told this story with their lens and thus became historians.

After watching that video, I was so encouraged that I teach, what I think to be, one of the most important subjects that one can ever learn. Photography is not only important for documenting fun aspects of our lives, but it can also show us humanity at it’s worst and it’s best. As a photographer and a photo teacher, I get to photograph and train my students to photograph history as it unfolds.

We then listened to an incredible story I heard on NPR this morning as I drove into work. I sat in my car chocking back tears and knew that I had to share it with my kids. One of the iconic images from 9/11 is of Father Mychal Judge, who was the first to be found dead out in the rubble.  After he heard that the first tower was attacked, this Jesuit priest went into the building to minister to people, but never came out alive. But he did save the lives of the 5 men who carry him, who otherwise would have been in the building as it collapsed and hopefully the souls of many more. God bless him.

And after lots of heaviness, I ended the lecture with a cool 24 hour time-lapse photo project that John Makely made of the construction of the memorial site. 10,000 photos put into a stop motion video…uber cool!

The main takeaway I wanted the kids to walk away with, is that they have to learn photography as if their life depended on it. You have no idea how life might unfold and what history is being made right in front of your lens. Aris Economopoulos, said that “We have to remember this. We can’t forget,” and I hope we never forget or have to live thru it again.