Immediately following the attacks of 9/11, nearly 100 trained search dogs and their handlers were deployed by FEMA to assist in the rescue efforts at the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Enlisted from a network of 26 task forces in 18 states around the U.S., the dogs worked around the clock to locate survivors in the rubble, alongside firemen and other teams sorting through the debris. One decade later, Dutch photographer Charlotte Dumas succeeded in tracking down 15 of the surviving dogs that took part in these rescue operations, visiting and photographing the dogs at their homes throughout the U.S., where they all still lived with their handlers. Composed at close range in natural light, Dumas' powerful portraits--reproduced here in a thoughtfully designed paperback volume with Japanese binding--offer an intimate view into the everyday lives of these highly specialized working animals, now sharing the vulnerability of old age as they once pursued a common heroic goal.
Featured image, one of the last living search and rescue dogs who served at the World Trade Center in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, is Duke, age 14, of Thousands Oaks, CA. Duke and Howard Orr arrived with CA-TF-8 at the World Trade Center on the 17th of September and were deployed for 10 days.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
ARTnews
Rebecca Robertson
Dutch photographer Charlotte Dumas has spent her career searching for soulfulness in animals, photogarphing police dogs and strays, zoo tigers and horses, and finding in them a kind of self-possession more often seen in human portraits. Dumas photographed the [horses] in their stalls at night by availible light, and the soft grainy images show the solitary hours where these massive creates feel vunerable. Like the late photojournalist Tim Hetherington's portraits of sleeping Marines, Dumas's images depict the powerful at rest.
FORMAT: Pbk, 8.25 x 11 in. / 48 pgs / illustrated throughout. LIST PRICE: U.S. $29.95 LIST PRICE: CANADA $39.95 GBP £27.00 ISBN: 9780982365366 PUBLISHER: The Ice Plant AVAILABLE: 10/15/2011 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of stock indefinitely AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: NA LA UK EUR ASIA AFR ME
Immediately following the attacks of 9/11, nearly 100 trained search dogs and their handlers were deployed by FEMA to assist in the rescue efforts at the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Enlisted from a network of 26 task forces in 18 states around the U.S., the dogs worked around the clock to locate survivors in the rubble, alongside firemen and other teams sorting through the debris. One decade later, Dutch photographer Charlotte Dumas succeeded in tracking down 15 of the surviving dogs that took part in these rescue operations, visiting and photographing the dogs at their homes throughout the U.S., where they all still lived with their handlers. Composed at close range in natural light, Dumas' powerful portraits--reproduced here in a thoughtfully designed paperback volume with Japanese binding--offer an intimate view into the everyday lives of these highly specialized working animals, now sharing the vulnerability of old age as they once pursued a common heroic goal.
