Stepping through the ashes

Many photographers have recorded the devastation of September 11, but Eugene Richards transcends description to offer instead a way of beginning to come to terms with this tragedy. He says, "the fenced-in sight of the World Trade Center has been largely dealt with as a crime scene, as a 'marvel' of destruction, or as the tourist attraction it is fast becoming. What I see when I stare downtown is an ever-evolving repository for the missing, a focal point for grieving, for remembering, for reflection, for self-examination." This project is about New York and America during a period of sudden and massive historical, economic, and psychological change. It's about how we feel about September 11, how we feel about our country today, how we feel about those lost in the disaster. In Stepping Through the Ashes, Richards, like so many of us, digs into the depths of his soul, trying both to work through his own feelings, and to live with the specter of September 11. It is for this reason that Stepping Through the Ashes is not only an extraordinary reflection in the wake of such tragedy, but also another turning point in the remarkable work of Eugene Richards. These often-metaphorical images are accompanied by interviews with some of the families who lost sons, daughters, husbands, wives, mothers, and fathers on September 11.