2400 unseen 9/11 photos found on CDs at a house clearance sale
Jun 20, 2019
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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September 11th, 2001 is a day that anybody who was around at the time will never forget. And while the world keeps spinning, it’s a day that will forever be discussed, especially as new information possibly comes to light. Now, almost 18 years after the event, 2,389 new photos shot around ground zero during September and October 2001 have been discovered. They were found in a house clearance sale burned onto CD-Roms.
The stash of CDs was acquired by archivists Jason Scott, who had no idea what was going to be on them at the time. They say that it’s a “miracle” that they were even able to transfer so much from them given the age of the CDs. The images are a mix of shots from both ground level and above. This suggests that they might have been taken by a construction worker. But nobody knows who this person might be.
All 2,389 of the images have been uploaded to an album on Flickr, by Jason Scott. Jason is the one who attended the sale and acquired the CDs. Dr Johnathan Burgess, a colleague of Jason’s says that “it’s a miracle the discs transferred so well, CD Roms of that age are pretty spotty”. The BBC reports that a CD recover service was used to retrieve some of the images.
According to the EXIF data on the images uploaded to Flickr, they were shot with a Canon PowerShot G1 – a 3-megapixel compact camera released in October 2000. Even today, compact cameras aren’t that great at night, so the fact that many of these images turned out as well as they did is also quite impressive.
Nearly 3,000 people died when four hijacked passenger jets were crashed into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania. Many who worked in the immediate aftermath of those attacks now suffer from serious illness, with over 400,000 people believed to have been either injured on the day or exposed to toxic contaminants.
You can see the complete archive of images by the unknown photographer on Flickr.
[via BBC]
John Aldred
John Aldred is a photographer with over 25 years of experience in the portrait and commercial worlds. He is based in Scotland and has been an early adopter – and occasional beta tester – of almost every digital imaging technology in that time. As well as his creative visual work, John uses 3D printing, electronics and programming to create his own photography and filmmaking tools and consults for a number of brands across the industry.
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12 responses to “2400 unseen 9/11 photos found on CDs at a house clearance sale”
Why did they burn them to CDs without looking at them?
The person who shot the photos burned them to CDs. The people who bought them didn’t know what was on them. :)
John Aldred so it’s a safe bet they’re probably not actually “unseen”
About as safe a bet as you being a troll. Goodbye. :)
John Aldred lol. Les isn’t a troll, he is in the media and cares about accuracy.
Matthew Nehrling Now let’s be completely accurate here… you know as well as anyone that I’m just a smart ass!
Les Hassell lol
… I do happen to have the physique of a troll but I’m probably too tall.
I hope they can track down the photographer as this story is spreading and he or she technically still owns the rights.
Actually, the rules of salvage apply more here. If the original person never comes forward, then the person who claimed them from the trash now owns the rights.
Just another piece of the plan to see the complete destruction of iran, all those countries we now occupy in response to the trade center attack just happen to encircle iran on every possible boarder without crossing the line with russia. Saudi Arabia has been proven to have been behind the attack yet they are currently being sold a massive stockpile of weapons from us. It’s all just a game.
Israel was behind it too