LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – Thousands of first responders charged toward the danger on Sept. 11, 2001, while thousands ran away. Others stood still — a Lubbock photographer is one of those who froze history to document it all.
Mark Umstot spent Sept. 11, 2001, documenting the attacks on the World Trade Center from a New York rooftop, capturing images he would not look at again for a decade.
“I felt like I was there documenting a historic moment. But I was also sitting there watching people die,” Umstot said. “And that’s brutal. Especially when you feel like your hands are completely tied.”
Umstot grew up in Lubbock. Today, you can find him taking photos at major Texas Tech events or non-profit fundraisers. Years ago, a preaching career took him to the Northeast, where he says he fell into photography, landing in New York.
He was walking home with his family on a Tuesday morning, crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, when the first plane hit.
“That was really an odd feeling because I didn’t know what was happening. But I sent my wife and daughter back. And I went and got camera stuff and went up on top of a building where I knew the doorman. And he let me up there and I started taking pictures,” Umstot said.
While people around him were choosing fight or flight, Umstot said all he could do was freeze.
“I was taking pictures the entire time that it was burning. Because I realized I couldn’t do anything. I would just get in the way of firemen, police officers. So, I decided to do what I do, which is document,” Umstot said.
Mark says he’ll never forget watching the horrific images playing out before his eyes, like watching people run from billowing smoke.
“I saw people jump, and that was brutal,” Umstot said. “I think the hardest one for me, and I don’t know if they were a couple or they were just friends, but I saw a man and woman jump together.”
On a rooftop blocks away, the reality of the devastation came to him, in the form of a prospectus from one of the offices in the World Trade Center.
“The paper as it flew up, it looked a lot like almost birds flying out of the debris. White birds. And this landed literally right in front of me. And it just meant something to me. Because I realized it was there,” Umstot said.
Umstot continued to document the destruction days after the attacks. Magazines heard about his photos, but Umstot said he didn’t feel right selling them. He couldn’t bring himself to look at them for a decade, until he allowed some to be published for the 10th anniversary.
“It’s something of a dark passenger who’s been traveling with me for 25 years. But I think it’s changed me for the good. It’s made me aware of what all of our responsibilities are,” Umstot said.
The images burned into his head, he says leaving a confidence in their wake that behind the lens was right where he needed to be.
Copyright 2026 KCBD. All rights reserved.