9/11

It's been eight years since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan is slowly being prepared for the new Freedom Tower but it won't be completed for another five years - they hope. One politician recently called the delay a tragedy. Money battles are at the center of the foot-dragging. The new tower will be a memorial to the 3,000-plus victims who perished when the twin towers came down.



Every year since the attack, these powerful beams of lights - one for each fallen tower - are turned on the day before 9/11 and will stay illuminated until after all of the remembrances are held.

Both of these photos were taken from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. They are time exposures using a tripod. I could not hand-hold my camera and get these pictures. In order to get all of the buildings and the beams to show properly, the timer needed to be set between 5 and 15 seconds.

The beams of light are a reminder the threat of terrorism is still very real and that - despite the passage of time and the political in-fighting going on about the future of the site - we mustn't forget the people who lost their lives then and the ones who've made the ultimate sacrifice in the middle-east fighting the war against terrorism.