Stephane Sednaoui: September 11, 2001

Photo © Stephane Sednaoui-All Rights Reserved

Out of the many images of the aftermath of September 11, 2001 that were published in the past few weeks, I thought the most compelling were by Stephane Sednaoui featured by TIME's LightBox, which is one of the best photo blogs.. Perhaps it's because I hadn't heard of him nor seen these images before,  and were in many ways different from those I had seen before.

Stephane Sednaoui is a photographer and a movie director, and has also worked as a documentary photographer covering the Romanian Revolution of 1989. He has photographed many music album covers, and directed more than 50 music videos.

Interestingly, Sednaoui's ancestors were originally from Syria, who moved to Egypt and established one of the country's first top notch department stores. The Sednaoui brothers, Samaan and Selim, established the Sednaoui (pronounced 'Sednawee') store in the early 1900s. The store still exists to this day, but is a shadow of its grandeur after being nationalized in the 60s.

The school I attended in Cairo required that all students buy their uniforms; blazers, caps, shorts and keen-high grey socks from the Sednaoui store, and I recall quite well my excitement each year in getting these new uniforms.