Days after the tragedy of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush had a great deal on his hands.  The destruction done around the United States was still being searched through, people were still unsure if their loved ones had made it out and wondering if there was another possible attack on the way.  As President Bush took on the days following the aftermath, he had to have various meetings and phone calls.  Photographer Eric Draper had the privilege to photograph the president as he had a televised telephone conversation with Governor George Pataki and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.  Draper uses the elements of symbols, focus, and color to express the tension and the significance that day will always have on the lives of Americans in his photograph.

Draper was able to use symbols as a way to show the significance of that day to all Americans and the President himself.  There is nothing particularly busy happening in this photograph, for it is just the President on the phone, with the American flag in the background.  Although the flag is slightly blurry behind the President, this flag still shows how this day affected the country.  The positioning of this symbol also shows how the country is still on the President's mind during that time of recovery.  The flag is slightly behind the President, so even though it is not clearly in his mind, he knows it is the underlying reason he must do what he has to do.  The flag in the photograph also brings out the significance of that day by reminding us that we will always be Americans, and we will always be together.  The symbol of the American flag that Draper captured in his photograph helps portray the lasting affect of fear and terrorism that September 11th left on the country.

In Draper's photograph, his focusing perspective helps portray the confusion and the tension that was felt around the country days after 9/11.  President Bush is the only thing in the photograph to be completely in focus, while the background is blurred.  Bush is on one of the most important phone calls, with the governor of New York and the mayor of New York City.  He is unsure of what to do, this has never happened to the country before, but he knows he must act quickly.  There is still so much uncertainty in the air.  Americans have no idea if there will be another attack or if they are safe in their own homes.  The president had to act quickly, for the country was waiting on him to respond.  This phone conversation was televised, for all of the people to see.  The focus in Draper's photograph depicts how President Bush was still so unsure of how to move forward, even though he had to be confident for the sake of the nation.  The blurriness of the background can be a representation of President Bush's mind at this point in time.  No other president has had to deal with an attack on our own soil in hundreds of years.  This large of an attack needed all of his attention, but his mind was fuzzy.  He had to make plenty of decisions in a short amount of time.  How did he investigate with most of the evidence gone?  How did he memorialize all of the Americans that just lost their lives so quickly?  How did he handle the attacks in multiple locations?  Through the confusion and tension following the days of 9/11, President Bush still had to have the country in mind and try to make the decisions he believed were the best for the country at that point in time.

Draper could have made this photo in black or white, or focused solely on one color, but instead, he chose to keep the picture in its full color to exemplify the vividness of everyone's memories of that day.  No one will forget where he or she was standing that day when they heard the news.  No one will forget how it felt to wonder if his or her loved ones were in that building.  No one will forget how the panic stayed for days, months after the attack.  The color of the photograph shows how nothing was black or white, regarding decisions that the president had to make in the days following the attack.  Bush had plenty of people from all over telling him how he should have handled the situation.  He even has people now telling him how he should have handled the situation differently.  In the end, he was the one who had to make the decisions, no one else.  He had to take everything as it was, in its full entity.  President Bust could not over think things, he just had to look at the attack and the aftermath as a whole. The coloring of the photo also shows how the aftermath is still around.  The color never goes away, just like the aftermath of 9/11 has never ended.  Now we have TSA when we go to the airport, and we are more cautious than ever about who enters this country and with what.  The use of full color in the photograph by Draper helps fulfill the idea of the significance that 9/11 brought to the President's job, and the people of the nation.  

Draper captured a very powerful photograph days after the tragedy we know as 9/11.  President Bush had a great deal on his plate for days and months after the attack.  He had to speak to many people, including this phone call Draper documented with Governor George Pataki and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani three days after the planes struck the Twin Towers.  Draper's photo captures the emotion and significance that day left behind with its use of symbols, focus, and color.

