Magnum Photos: Peter Marlow, USA. New York. Sept. 11th Aftermath.

Peter Marlow, USA. New York. Sept. 11th Aftermath. USA. NYC. New York two months after the September 11th attacks. An American flag on the subway. 2001. Magnum Photos. Available from: http://www.artstor.org (accessed February 13. 2014). 

This appears to be an ordinary picture of a New York subway carriage. The composition of the picture looks like "just" a snap shot of a New York subway train.  The angle is slanted. It reminds me a vague mental picture of New Yorker's everyday commute. Tourists from the country or all over the world would take a picture like this. Perhaps smiling travelers would be in front of the subway carriage. For a New Yorker, the tourists' action may appear slightly strange, but for the travelers the picture is a visible memory of New York. One thing separates this picture from a casual snapshot is that the photographer might have used a longer exposure, possibly with a tripod or a well calculated use of flashlights. The picture was taken in underground or during twilight hours, and it would be impossible to reach this high-quality picture without these instruments.

The center of this photograph is an American flag, which is also an everyday vision of our life. But if you see when this photograph was taken, you realize what signified in this flag evokes an emotional reaction to many. Empty seats inside guide us to a thought about the people who had been filling those seats. The 6 Line services between Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall Station in Manhattan and Pelham Bay Park Station in Bronx. The former station is less than half a mile away from the site of the World Trade Center. 

This photograph has a personal significance, too. I moved from London to New York in 2004. I had been familiar with the London "Underground" logo with a red and white body. The tube did not bear a flag. In my memory, the vision like this photograph was the moment when I felt I was in a new country.