9/11 — Tattoo on my mind — Every time September rolls around I can't help but recall where I was when the attack on the World Trade Center in New York took place. I was in Torino, Italy, working with my good friend Enrico, of Paris-based publisher pix4notes. We were printing The 36 Unknown, my book about the 36 righteous people who exist in every generation and help save the world. I got a call at around 9 a.m. NYC time (3:00 p.m. in Torino) from my girlfriend Isabelle whom I married shortly after. She told me that an airplane had crashed into the World Trade Center.

I was in disbelief; we were all in shock... I picked up the phone and called my friend Taro Yamasaki, the son of the architect. I said, "Taro, your father's building is still standing!" Taro seemed to be in a state of shock himself. I could hear how upset he was... I started to have a flashback on the first time they tried to blow up the WTC in 1993. We spent four days walking around the WTC site photographing with Taro. He was asked to cover the story and needed some help. We just kept walking around the buildings, photographing for hours and days, talking about what could have happened had the building fallen on top of other buildings nearby, as I recall there were 25,000 people working in each tower.

Taro is a photojournalist, I am not. His way of covering the story was very interesting for me to witness, how he would approach this subject, even if it was very close to home for him... It was there that I found a face hanging from a building or crane. Now that I am thinking back... maybe it was one of the 36 Unknown. I even showed it to Taro.

My photo of the month is in remembrance of all the people who lost their lives on that day.

I took the photograph in the mid 1970's. It seems like the caution light had a previsualization of the 9/11 event.

— T.W.