John Botte: (As an NYPD detective, Botte was a 9/11 first responder.) I took my first shot about 5:30 p.m. on September 11 on my first trip out onto the pile. We had lost a lot of people. A lot of my friends perished, people I was just talking to an hour before. My eyes were burned and a couple of our guys were injured. But we wrapped our heads around it and got a strategy together, and everybody started going out into the pile. When we got out there the first time, the only words [Police Commissioner Bernard] Kerik he said to me were, "Do your thing with that camera." And whenever I was able to, in between my duties, I would look for that sliver, that sixtieth of a second, when I could compose a shot that would have an impact. I was with the commissioner and the mayor and the whole detail, so I had to be very, very discreet with the camera. You can't point it in someone's face. You see the composition, you previsualize it, bring the camera up, look through the range finder, compose it, click, put the camera back down, end of story. There was no "Hold that right there."

Joel Johnson, Matt Buchanan and Scott Alexander (interviews)