Axios interview: The 9/11 photographers who ran toward the danger

"This is history, this is history." That's what photojournalist Spencer Platt was thinking 25 years ago as he photographed the events unfolding on the morning of 9/11. Why it matters: Platt and fellow Getty photographer Mario Tama told Axios what it was like on the ground that day. Trained as photojournalists, their instinct was to move toward the danger to document history.Tama had just been hired by Getty Images two months before when he got the urgent call from his assignment editor. Rushing out the door of his Lower East Side apartment, he recalled the horror of what he was documenting:"There was definitely some cognitive dissonance — it was totally unfathomable. As I got closer on foot, I came across an office worker being treated on the ground, stunned and bloodied. Seeing blood coming out of his ear made the human toll of what was happening frighteningly real."Tama credits the NYPD for saving his life that morning: "At this point, some other photographers and I began attempting to get to the base of the towers; as photojournalists, we are trained to get as close as possible. The NYPD likely saved a lot of lives that day, including my own, by blocking us from getting closer in that area." Attempting to access the towers, Tama witnessed the collapse of the South Tower. "I then heard a kind of sheering sound and looked up and, horrifyingly, I recall the tower tilted a bit and started to pancake down. In that moment, I went from being a photojournalist to any other New Yorker running for their life, it was absolutely terrifying."Tama took cover beside a parking garage with strangers as dust rained down in what he describes as a total blackout, holding onto each other in the darkness. After the dust started to clear, he captured a picture of the men he took refuge with: Civilians take cover as a dust cloud from the collapse of the World Trade Center envelops lower Manhattan, September 11, 2001. Photo: Mario Tama/Getty ImagesMeanwhile, Platt awoke in his apartment in Brooklyn's Dumbo neighborhood that morning, a vantage point that let him capture the moment United Airlines Flight 175 slammed into the South Tower. Rushing from his apartment, he gathered with cab drivers on the Brooklyn Bridge as the North Tower burned. Minutes later, he watched the second plane's impact through his camera's viewfinder. "I made sure I had the pictures by looking at the digital back; a Pakistani taxi driver, looking over my shoulder, yelled out, "He has it, he has the picture!" I proceeded to head over the Brooklyn Bridge towards the towers, my throat parched." Hijacked United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston crashes into the South Tower of the World Trade Center and explodes at 9:03 a.m. on September 11, 2001. Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesPlatt reflected on what it meant to be both a working photojournalist on assignment and a New Yorker trying to survive the horror of that day:"I think I shifted throughout the day from being a civilian witness to a photojourna