It is a usual routine for many North American office workers to spend their first 10 minutes of each work day by reading their e-mails and latest world and local news on his or her favourite news site. There wasn't much news that day besides the primaries elections in New York City. Shortly after 8:40am (American Airlines flight 11 crashed into the north tower of World Trade Center at 8:38am) I started having problems with getting anywhere on the Internet. I said to myself: "Oh well, our network is down again." In about 10 minutes my first colleagues showed up with the news.

Instantly, I remembered a bestselling paperback that I had finished reading not a long time before. In it the main villain used an old cargo plane loaded with explosives to incinerate San Francisco airport terminal killing hundreds of people. On 9/11 people were exclaiming: "How is it possible?". But those who read Tom Clancy's novels, and similar books can understand that it wasn't that hard to repeat what writers put down in their bestselling action thrillers.

Next fifteen minutes were spend by frantically trying to get some news about what happened. Shortly after 9:00am another just-arrived colleague said that another plane hit the second tower. There were no more doubts about it all not being an accident. Our corporate apartment was just 12 minutes of brisk walk away from the office. In the apartment was my photo camera bag with my Canon EOS D30 and zoom lenses. I didn't know what to do. On one hand I didn't feel being in any danger. The World Trade Center was 3 miles away from us, and we didn't know the extent of the damage. But on another hand we did, however, feel the significance of what was happening.

In a time of disaster one of the biggest dangers is the lack of information. The news sites on the Internet were effectively shut down by the overwhelming traffic. I was getting torn apart between my responsibility as a consultant before our client, and as a photographer who has a chance to tell a story first-hand. Seeing my anxiousness, my co-workers told me that I should go, and get my camera, and then we'll see what happens.

I run outside, and caught the very first cab I saw. The morning traffic was slow though, and after getting to Second Avenue I paid the fare and run the last two blocks to our apartment building. Five minutes later I was on the rooftop with my camera in hand, and I saw for the first time the burning Twin Towers.

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