The Falling Man, an Unforgettable Story

There was no terror or confusion at the Associated Press. There was, instead, that feeling of history being manufactured; although the office was as crowded as he'd ever seen it, there was, instead, "the wonderful calm that comes into play when people are really doing their jobs." So photographer Richard Drew did his: He inserted the disc from his digital camera into his laptop and recognized, instantly, what only his camera had seen—something iconic in the extended annihilation of a falling man. He didn't look at any of the other pictures in the sequence; he didn't have to. "You learn in photo editing to look for the frame," he says. "You have to recognize it. That picture just jumped off the screen because of its verticality and symmetry. It just had that look." [View in Browser]( [Esquire]( [SHOP]( EXCLUSIVE [SUBSCRIBE]( [The Falling Man]( [The Falling Man]( There was no terror or confusion at the Associated Press. There was, instead, that feeling of history being manufactured; although the office was as crowded as he'd ever seen it, there was, instead, "the wonderful calm that comes into play when people are really doing their jobs." So photographer Richard Drew did his: He inserted the disc from his digital camera into his laptop and recognized, instantly, what only his camera had seen—something iconic in the extended annihilation of a falling man. He didn't look at any of the other pictures in the sequence; he didn't have to. "You learn in photo editing to look for the frame," he says. "You have to recognize it. That picture just jumped off the screen because of its verticality and symmetry. It just had that look." [Read More](   ['It Became Spiritual': The Making of Esquire's 'The Falling Man']( ['It Became Spiritual': The Making of Esquire's 'The Falling Man']( Tom Junod, David Granger, and Andrew Chaikivsky reflect on a life-changing story. [Read More]( [My Escape From the 81st Floor of the World Trade Center]( [My Escape From the 81st Floor of the World Trade Center]( At 8:48 on the morning of September 11, Michael Wright was a thirty-year-old account executive working high in the World Trade Center. Two hours later, he was something else. [Read More](     [The Supreme Court Has Deformed Our Politics at Every Level]( [The Supreme Court Has Deformed Our Politics at Every Level]( Over the weekend, Heidi Przybyla of Politico blew a very loud whistle on the cozy relationship between Federalist Society puppetmaster Leonard Leo, crackpot political activist Ginni Thomas, and the carefully manufactured conservative majority on the Supreme Court of the United States in the person of Ginni's husband, Justice Clarence Thomas. The initial revelation lies right there in the very first anecdote in the story. It all comes back to Citizens United v. FEC, the egregious 2010 decision that legalized political influence-peddling and protected the free speech rights of bagmen and their customers. Turns out that Leo and Thomas knew enough about what was coming down from the bench to get a well-financed operation up and running in advance of the eventual decision. [Read More](   [Five Fits With: Mitchell S. Jackson, Author of Fly: The Big Book of Basketball Fashion]( [Five Fits With: Mitchell S. Jackson, Author of Fly: The Big Book of Basketball Fashion]( The Pulitzer-winning writer—and Esquire contributor—takes us on a tour of his own wardrobe. [Read More]( [A Conspiracy in Brentwood]( [A Conspiracy in Brentwood]( At the scene of Marilyn Monroe's death, the evidence isn't adding up. Overdose, suicide, or murder? Follow rogue cop Freddy Otash down the rabbit hole in James Ellroy's latest Hollywood noir. [Read More](     [Starfield Is a Miracle]( [Starfield Is a Miracle]( A video game hasn’t made me feel this way since I was 12 years old. I’ll admit that for the past two years, I’ve been skeptical of Starfield. After watching the first teaser trailer, I worried Bethesda's new RPG would be a desaturated remake of No Man's Sky—a game I found soulless, cumbersome, and exhausting to play. I was wrong. “Live another life, in another world” has long been Todd Howard’s mantra at Bethesda, from the fantasy realms of The Elder Scrolls to the post-apocalyptic settlements of Fallout. But Starfield takes that idea to an unprecedented level of intricacy and immersion. I’m pretty sure it’s the largest fictional universe anyone has ever built, and the freedom of choice and customization make it an absolute rocket-blast to explore. [Read More](   [ESQ Membership]( Follow Us [Unsubscribe]( | [Privacy Notice/Notice at Collection]( esquire.com ©2023 Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Hearst Magazines, 300 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019