Profile: Thomas Hoepker

On the 11th September 2001, certain events took place in Lower Manhattan, New York that would change America forever. The picture below was taken by Thomas Hoepker, a German photographer who was working in New York at the time. The image wasn't released for 5 years; however that didn't change at all just what the photo meant to some people.

It was on the said day in 2001 that Hoepker would snap his ticket to fame. He woke up to another ordinary day in New York, however what was to follow was beyond unpredictable and would change his and many other people's lives forever. The little known German photographer was about to provide himself with a catalyst to one day start a storm.

Hoepker was born in Munich on 10th June 1936 and first began taking photo's at the age of 16 when he received a 9x12 glass plate camera from his grandfather. He started to earn little money from selling photographs to his classmates and friends and would develop the prints in the kitchen of his family home.

In 1956, Hoepker studied art history and archaeology in Munich and was taught about understanding images and composition. He continued to finance his education through selling photos to his fellow classmates. He started working for Stern Magazine in 1964 as a photojournalist and this is when his career started to lift off.

In the 1970's Hoepker worked as a cameraman for German TV and in 1976, he and his then wife, journalist Eva Windmoeller, moved to New York to work as correspondents for Stern. From 1978 to 1981, Hoepker was director of photography for American Geo and from 1987 to 1989 he was based in Hamburg as art director for Stern. He is a member of Magnum Photos who first started producing his work in 1964. He became a full member in 1989 and served as president from 2003 to 2006.

Throughout his career, Hoepker (left) mostly used Leica cameras, however in the 1970's he also started to use Single-lens reflex cameras alongside those. He used his Leica's for wide angle shots and in 2002 he began to use digital SLR's.

Hoepker had been working for almost 40 years and suddenly, all that previous work across the globe and working for different companies while trying to build a certain reputation meant nothing to everyone else and his whole career boiled down to one photo. A photo that perhaps altered many peoples views on Americans during the 9/11 attacks.


After the photo was released, Hoepker gave his views on his greatest ever piece. "They were totally relaxed like any other afternoon," the German said. "It's possible they lost people and cared, but they were not stirred by it." Hoepker revealed that he didn't release the photo at the time of the tragedy as he felt people didn't need to see that then, and that it would stir the wrong emotions. 5 years later, he felt the time was right and that the photo had grown in importance.

Today, Hoepker lives where he became famous, in New York. He produces television documentaries alongside his second and current wife, Christine Kruchen. He will always be known for being the man at the centre of the controversy which surrounds the above photo - one of the most controversial pictures taken during 9/11.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hoepker 26-09-2012
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/10/opinion/10rich.html?pagewanted=all&_ 27-09-2012