For Earth Below

For those that follow this blog, and for those who are just visiting, for the past two years or so, I have been documenting the visitors to the One World Trade Center site, a.k.a., “The Freedom Tower”. It is still an ongoing project. I have documented quiet contemplation, tears, awe, and just general interest in looking onto the construction area. The images do not show the tower at all except in reflections on walls, sunglasses, or views in one’s camera and cell phone screens. My intention was to capture a thought provoking collection of expressions, emotions, and the diverse ethnic make-up of the visitors.

For more imagery, here is a link to the full ongoing project, “Looking On – Watching The Building Of The Freedom Tower” – http://www.pbase.com/keithbg/looking_on&page=all

Every day, thousands of tourists take snapshots of the World Trade Center site in Manhattan’s busy Financial District, where the cloud-piercing One World Trade Center tower has been under construction since 2006. But it’s rare that these camera-wielding visitors get photographed themselves. In his series Looking On: Watching the Building of the Freedom Towers, photographer Keith Goldstein becomes a spectator of spectators, capturing tourists’ unguarded facial expressions as they stare skyward—mouths agape, necks stretched, contemplating the significance of the immense silver skyscraper before them.

“This project sort of appeared out of my lunchtime photo walks,” Goldstein tells Co.Design. He works as a photo editor near the World Trade Center site, and found himself drawn to its visitors. “My intention was to capture a thought-provoking collection of expressions, emotions, and the diverse ethnic make-up of the visitors,” he says, “to see how they reacted to what they were seeing—a place where…