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Matinee: 'One Frame, A World Changed'
3 October 2026
Saturday matinees long ago let us escape from the ordinary world to the island of the Swiss Family Robinson or the mutinous decks of the Bounty. Why not, we thought, escape the usual fare here with Saturday matinees of our favorite photography films?
So we're pleased to present the 676th in our series of Saturday matinees today: One Frame, A World Changed.
In this 1:42 clip from Fujifilm, Lyle Owerko talks about capturing the 9/11 photograph of United Airlines Flight 175 striking the South Tower of the World Trade Center that appeared on the cover of Time magazine's special issue.
In the 25 years since he took that photo, Owerko says, "There's not a day that goes by I don't think about 9/11."
Fujifilm tells the story:
On Sept. 11, 2001, Owerko was 33, living in Tribeca and recently returned from an assignment in Tanzania and woke unusually early because of jet lag. He was emailing a friend when he heard the first plane strike the North Tower. His camera bag, still packed from the trip, was near the entrance to his apartment.
He grabbed the bag and ran outside. His building superintendent told him he had seen an American Airlines plane hit the World Trade Center. Owerko moved quickly through Tribeca toward the sirens, "I just went on assignment," he recalled. "I self-assigned myself to this event but thinking that it was just one story."
Running toward the downtown sirens, he reached the corner of Church and Vesey streets and began photographing. He chose a position that put the sun behind him and allowed him to frame both towers: the North Tower damaged and smoking, the South Tower still outwardly intact.
Then he heard another jet. When the aircraft banked toward the South Tower, he understood its trajectory. "Everything was unfolding in real time," he said. "That was when I composed a shot and made this decision that I would click the shutter with what happened," he explained.
Just afterward, a police officer asked whether he had captured the moment of impact. When Owerko said yes, the officer told him, "Don't go anywhere -- just keep shooting, keep documenting this."
Time's photo desk had his photo taken with a Fujifilm GA645Zi camera by noon that day and it ran on the cover of the magazine's special edition on Sept. 12.
"The world was searching for answers at that time," he remembers. "They were searching for, 'How did this happen? Why did this happen?'" He sees in that image some of the shock, sadness, grief and disbelief that people could not yet put into words.