New Canaan Student Creates Big 9/11 Tribute

NEW CANAAN, Conn. – It started as a simple classroom project to commemorate the events of Sept. 11, 2001. But now Bryan James is making New Canaan’s first responders into something larger than life.

James’s photos of New Canaan police officers, firefighters and emergency medical technicians will be on display this weekend as the nation pauses to remember the people who perished in the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history.

Rather than conceive a tribute of brick, mortar or steel, James, 17 a senior at New Canaan High School, wanted to show the faces of first responders through a camera lens. He borrowed a Nikon camera from friend Ned Berman and took pictures of 12 New Canaan emergency responders who went to New York City after the attacks at the World Trade Center. He also interviewed them, gaining more insight on what happened in Manhattan that day.

The photos were submitted to the Inside Out Project, a large-scale global art project, and made into black-and-white posters. The Inside Out Project allows anyone to upload their own portrait or those of others and receive a printed poster for free. In return for the printed poster, the receiver pastes the poster on a public space where the images then become part of the global art project.

“I never thought it would get this big,” said James, who was a second-grader at East Elementary School when the attacks occurred. 

The huge poster portraits will be displayed at the New Canaan YMCA at 2 p.m. Friday. They initially were to hang outside of New Canaan High School, but James and others opted to keep them indoors in case of wet weather. Four of the images — of EMTs Liz Buckner and Troy Haynie and firefighters Capt. Michael Socci and Michael Tiani – will be on display in New York during Sept. 11 memorial services Sunday.

James hopes the posters will inspire New Canaanites to have “the same honorable qualities of selflessness, courage and humility as the first responders.”

“I think when we see a photo of someone who is just like us and we know is living in our community, it is much more inspiring and more real.  More so than a bronze statue,” he said.  

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