Patrick Witty

Twenty-two years ago I stood here, looking upwards in horror, watching bodies fall through the air. I couldn’t bear it any longer so I turned around and took this photo. At that moment, 9:59 A.M. on September 11, 2001, the South Tower began to collapse. In 2012, I used social media in an attempt to find the people in my photo. A guy on @facebook messaged me, saying he recognized his father, Benjamin, as the man in the center with glasses. He was supposed to be in the World Trade Center that morning for a job interview but was running late. “As I walked out of the subway, I saw the building on fire and didn’t know why,” Benjamin told me. “I was in complete shock. I would have been in that building while the planes hit.” After articles about my search appeared in @time and @theatlantic in 2013, I was fortunate to discover the names of five others — Anthony, Rodger, Ramzy, Alfredo, and Wanda. Since then, I’ve found three more — Ryan, Craig, and Sharon. Many remain. I'm sharing the second photo (slide 2) for the first time ever, taken just moments before the South Tower collapsed, hoping it may trigger some memories. Remarkable how no one is on their phones. Side note: I processed the @kodak T-Max 400 film in my neighbor’s kitchen darkroom at 11 Stanton Street. That same neighbor @caryconover , shot a photo (slide 3) of a much younger me the following day, September 12, 2001. Read more in my latest story, The New Yorkers on 9/11, on Field of View on @substackinc . Link in profile, free to subscribe. #september11 #wtc #911 #photojournalism

Historic photo by White House photographer @dto.rok of @potus watching surveillance footage of the shooter alongside Vice President JD Vance and Cabinet members in the Oval Office.

80 years ago, on August 6, 1945, an atomic bomb detonated over Hiroshima, instantly killing over 70,000 people. This is the only known motion picture of the explosion. American physicist Harold Agnew is credited with shooting the footage, as The New York Times noted in his obit. But that’s false. It was Agnew’s camera (a Bell & Howell) but the tail gunner, Sgt. Albert “Poppy” Dehart, actually shot the historic film. For years, images like this–distant, anonymous views of a mushroom cloud–were all the world saw of the attack on Hiroshima. It wasn’t until 1952 that this photo, by Hajime Miyatake, was finally published. Miyatake recalled the scene: “Looking at people near death laid out on concrete, their faces and bodies burned, only shreds of clothing still clinging to them, I stood...frozen to the spot...camera in hand.” Read more in the archives of Field of View. Link in profile, etc. #photojournalism #photography #hiroshima

The tradition of Presidents lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda dates back to 1865, when Abraham Lincoln became the first. But, unless Alexander Gardner snuck a frame—à la Tom Howard—no photos exist of Lincoln’s casket in the Rotunda. It wasn’t until the death of President James Garfield in 1881 that the tradition was first documented. Washington photographer Charles Milton Bell got the call (slide 4). Plenty of good photos have been made in the Rotunda, but sometimes it takes an act of God—or a random streak of sunlight—to make a great one. National Geographic photographer George Mobley climbed to the balcony for this photo of JFK’s casket in 1963. LIFE’s Bob Gomel was shoulder to shoulder with Mobley and captured a strikingly similar photo (slide 2). “The lighting was divine intervention,” Gomel told the Houston Chronicle. “But you have to be ready for it, too.” When President Eisenhower lay in state in the Rotunda in 1969, Gomel rigged a camera directly above his casket with a wire-and-pulley system and a foot pedal to trigger the shutter. Gomel’s gravity-defying photo landed on the cover of LIFE (slide 3). I write about these photos and a lot more in my latest on Field of View: The Departed, Lying in State. Link in bio and story.

Abbie Rowe served as a White House photographer for over 25 years, documenting an unprecedented five administrations. In 1963, he captured this tender moment of Jaqueline Kennedy and her daughter kneeling at JFK’s casket in the Capitol Rotunda. Rowe’s photo, despite being back-focused (Horatio Stone’s marble statue of Edward Dickinson Baker, not Jackie, is tack sharp), is one of the most well-known photos of a President lying in state. But it’s far from his best. On April 14, 1945, he shot this incredibly deeply-layered photo through the window of FDR’s funeral train (slide 2). The ghostly reflections have an American Gothic vibe. I write about these photos and a lot more in my latest on Field of View: The Departed, Lying in State. Link in bio and story.

I first wrote about the portraits of former President Jimmy Carter for Field of View in March 2023, when he entered hospice care. Two portraits stood out to me—both by Richard Avedon @avedonfoundation . This one, taken in 2004 at the Democratic National Convention for @newyorkermag , highlights Carter’s relaxed, piercing but kind, blue eyes. Stunning. Avedon passed away just a few months after the 2004 shoot. Reflecting on the portrait, New Yorker editor David Remnick said, “The photograph of Carter is of a kind of saintly presence, not because Jimmy Carter was a saint all his life but because in his retirement, he has that aura in a way that certain ex-presidents, living and dead, did not and do not.” The other, taken in 1976 for @rollingstone as part of his groundbreaking series “The Family,” definitely feels more like an “Avedon,” but look at his eyes. Stress. Carter passed away on December 29, 2024, at home, surrounded by family. Revisit these portraits and others on FoV.

The Luigi Mangione perp walk photos that went viral call to mind Timothy McVeigh—his April 21, 1995, perp walk was his debut to the world, paraded by FBI agents outside the Noble County Courthouse in Perry, Oklahoma. Bob Daemmerich was all over it for Agence France-Presse (slide 1). Ralf-Finn Hestoft, hustling the story for SABA, made the cover of TIME (slide 2). The restraint and placement of Charles Porter’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of a firefighter cradling a baby on the cover is admirable—props to Michelle Stephenson. While researching this piece, I ran across a rare deer-in-the-headlights photo of McVeigh, taken by FBI agent Chuck Choney (slide 3). It’s not a perp walk per se—it feels more like an elbows-flying paparazzi scrum, punch-flashed, camera-pressed-against-the-car-window grab—and it’s fascinating. Another notable through-the-window perp photo is Ira Schwarz’s photo of John Hinckley Jr., after his arraignment on March 31, 1981 (slide 4). Schwarz caught Hinckley’s cuffed wrists and glaring mug surrounded by agents in a wood-paneled, nine-seat station wagon. See more in my latest on Field of View: The Perp Walk of Fame. Link in bio, story and all that.

Weegee, hustling the edges of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1942. 82 years later, his aesthetic holds...📸

On November 24, 1963, Robert “Bob” Jackson captured the most infamous perp walk photo in history. At 11:21 a.m., Jackson, a photographer for the Dallas Times Herald, squeezed the shutter on his @nikonusa  S3 just as Jack Ruby fatally shot John F. Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. Jackson won the @pulitzerprizes . Jack Beers’ photo was taken just before Jackson’s. Beers, a staff photographer for @dallasnews  was positioned just to the right, standing on a railing with his Mamiyaflex C3. “I was there. I was prepared. But I didn’t get it,” Beers’ once said. Standing between Jackson and Beers was @upi  photographer Frank Johnston. Oswald’s glare in Ruby’s direction is fortuitous. “My gosh, it's an elbow away sometimes,” Johnston recalled. Love that. If you get a moment, revisit my deep dig on Field of View that gets into all these photos and more. “The Execution of The Assassin,” link in profile, free to subscribe @substackinc . #photojournalism #photo

On this day in 1963, Stan Wayman @life captured a defining image of a nation in shock over JFK’s assassination. The eye contact is haunting. Almost looks like she's on a phone. LIFE published Stan's photo paired with an image of a Pieta in NYC by Richard Pace (slide 2). The following spread featured Cecil Stoughton's iconic photo of Jackie and LBJ (slide 3). My mom saved this issue, a treasure.

Photos like these from election night have gone the way of that sweet looking rotary phone. White House photographer Mary Anne Fackelman was all over President Reagan thumbs-upping the room as he took Walter Mondale’s concession call on election night in 1984. We also won’t see contact sheets again (slide 2). Thumbs-up Reagan is an easy pick, but take a closer look at frame #8. The First Lady is subtly leaning in, listening to the call. Fackelman was ON IT. But if we’re talking concession call photos, @callieshell 's image of Gore rescinding his concession to W. is the undisputed GOAT. Taken amid the chaos of election night in 2000, Shell documented an unprecedented moment in American politics. Look at all those faces. The hand over the mouth, Gore’s dangling arm, Bill Daley, Joe Lieberman, the land line. And yes, that’s Tipper Gore behind the lens on the left. I talk about these remarkable photos and a whole lot more in my latest on Field of View: The Thrill, The Agony, and The Aftermath. #photography #photojournalism

Some photos I made in the newsroom of The @nytimes on #electionday in 2004. I was a few months into the job and no one seemed to notice me wandering around with a Leica. Peak imposter syndrome. #photojournalism