LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – Thousands of first responders charged toward the danger on Sept. 11, 2001, while thousands ran away. Others stood still \u2014 a Lubbock photographer is one of those who froze history to document it all. <\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like I was there documenting a historic moment. But I was also sitting there watching people die,\u201d Umstot said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s brutal. Especially when you feel like your hands are completely tied.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
He was walking home with his family on a Tuesday morning, crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, when the first plane hit.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was really an odd feeling because I didn\u2019t 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,\u201d Umstot said.<\/p>\n
While people around him were choosing fight or flight, Umstot said all he could do was freeze.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was taking pictures the entire time that it was burning. Because I realized I couldn\u2019t do anything. I would just get in the way of firemen, police officers. So, I decided to do what I do, which is document,\u201d Umstot said.<\/p>\n
Mark says he\u2019ll never forget watching the horrific images playing out before his eyes, like watching people run from billowing smoke.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw people jump, and that was brutal,\u201d Umstot said. \u201cI think the hardest one for me, and I don\u2019t know if they were a couple or they were just friends, but I saw a man and woman jump together.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 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,\u201d Umstot said.<\/p>\n
Umstot continued to document the destruction days after the attacks. Magazines heard about his photos, but Umstot said he didn\u2019t feel right selling them. He couldn\u2019t bring himself to look at them for a decade, until he allowed some to be published for the 10th anniversary.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something of a dark passenger who\u2019s been traveling with me for 25 years. But I think it\u2019s changed me for the good. It\u2019s made me aware of what all of our responsibilities are,\u201d Umstot said.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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