Photographer: ‘All I can hear is that man’s head against that train: Boom! Boom! Boom!’

The photographer who shot the subway horror photo that appeared on yesterday’s New York Post cover says he’s “surprised at the anger over the pictures, of the people who are saying: Why didn’t he put the camera down and pull him out?”

R. Umar Abbasi says he’s not going to let his “armchair critics” bother him.

They have no idea how very quickly it happened. People think I had time to set the camera and take photos, and that isn’t the case. I just ran toward that train. …The sad part is, there were people who were close to the victim, who watched and didn’t do anything. You can see it in the pictures. The truth is I could not reach that man; if I could have, I would have.

Abbasi says the victim never screamed for help. “It was one of the most horrible things I have ever seen,” he says, “to watch that man dying there. When it was over, I didn’t look at the pictures.”

* Photographer who took subway photos recounts the horror he saw (nypost.com)
* Watch Abbasi’s “Today” interview with Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie (wptv.com)
* “Human being first, photographer second. But still try to get the picture” (chicagotribune.com)
* What Pulitzer-winning photographers say about Abbasi’s cover photo (gawker.com)

via JIMROMENESKO.COM http://jimromenesko.com/2012/12/05/photographer-all-i-can-hear-is-that-mans-head-against-that-train-boom-boom-boom/