1947–2001
Freelance Photographer | New York, New York | September 11, 2001 | Age 54
His instinct to get close to the story—honed over two decades documenting conflict from Gaza to Belfast—led him into the collapsing towers of the World Trade Center, making him the only professional journalist killed on 9/11.
The Journalist
William Biggart grew up knowing how to navigate chaos. As one of twelve children in an Irish Catholic family, led by an Army officer father, Biggart learned early that survival in a crowd meant finding your angle and holding your ground. Those skills would serve him later, though in ways his family probably never imagined.
Biggart started as a commercial photographer, the kind of work that paid bills but offered little in the way of surprise. By 1985, circumstances had changed which allowed Biggart to take his cameras out of the studio and into the streets. He wanted the unpredictability of real news environments, the kind of situations where you couldn’t choreograph what happened next. He made the shift to photojournalism and never looked back.
The Work
In 1988, Biggart began covering the First Intifada in Gaza and the West Bank. While some photographers worked from safe distances with telephoto lenses, Biggart preferred proximity. He captured stones mid-flight, batons making contact with flesh, the precise moment of impact. But he also photographed the quiet aftermath—grief etched on a mother’s face, victory flashing across a young fighter’s eyes, the particular exhaustion that comes from sustained resistance.
Biggart returned year after year for nearly a decade, building a visual record of Palestinian armed resistance that showed both its violence and its human dimensions. Israeli police arrested him and warned him not to come back, but he returned. Biggart was one of the first photojournalists accused by the Israel Defense Forces for throwing stones.
That same year, he started making trips to Northern Ireland. His maternal grandmother had emigrated from County Leitrim, and he felt drawn to document the Troubles—the decades-long conflict between those fighting for Irish independence and those determined to maintain British rule. His photographs from Belfast and Derry captured the same duality he’d found in Gaza: militants crouching behind walls with hand grenades alongside images of ordinary people drinking at pubs or gathering at makeshift funerals.
Biggart’s inclination to document resistance movements—Palestinian fighters, the IRA—reflected his interest in people fighting against overwhelming power, even when those struggles provoked controversy.
But he also turned his lens on oppression and hatred. He documented racism across America, photographing the aftermath of the Howard Beach attack in Queens, where a Black man was killed by a white mob in 1986. He traveled south to capture the pathetic remnants of the Ku Klux Klan, showing what organized hatred looks like in America.
His work showed a photographer uninterested in simple narratives. Whether documenting armed resistance or racist violence, his photographs refused to let viewers maintain comfortable distance from difficult subjects.
The Final Story
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Biggart heard about the first plane hitting the World Trade Center and grabbed his cameras. He headed straight for Lower Manhattan, doing what he’d done in Gaza and Belfast and everywhere else—getting as close to the action as possible.
While most people were fleeing the towers, Biggart walked toward them. He had spent two decades learning to read dangerous situations, to position himself where the story was happening while managing the risks. That instinct had kept him alive through the Intifada and the Troubles. This time, it would kill him.
He shot approximately 300 photographs across three cameras that morning. The images documented the chaos—burning debris, ash-covered survivors, firefighters racing toward disaster. Wendy, his wife, was able to get through to Bill on his cell phone only once before the second tower collapsed. He told Wendy he was safe and that he was with the firefighters.
At 10:28 a.m., he took his final photograph, which was the exact moment the second tower collapsed.
Rescue workers found his body four days later, along with his gear. His friend Chip East, another photographer, was able to salvage the digital memory cards and exposed film from the destroyed cameras. The final images—approximately 150 digital images and 150 film images—emerged like archaeological artifacts, fossilized moments from inside catastrophe, preserved by the same dust and debris that killed their creator.
The photographs show what Biggart saw in the last moments of his life: the towers burning, people running, firefighters advancing into the smoke. The final frame timestamped the very second the North Tower fell, capturing the South Tower’s base engulfed in dust and fire from the first collapsed building.
The Legacy
Wendy Doremus, Bill’s wife, worked with the Newseum in Washington, D.C. on their 9/11 exhibit, which featured Bill’s destroyed cameras along with his images. Those images, along with much of his other work, can be seen on his website.
Biggart was the only professional journalist killed on 9/11, a distinction that underscores both his commitment to documenting the truth. While television crews and newspaper photographers documented the attacks from safe distances, he was inside the collapse zone, creating the visual record that others couldn’t or wouldn’t.
His career had been built on a simple principle: get close enough to show what’s actually happening, not what it looks like from a distance. That principle had produced powerful work over two decades of covering resistance, conflict, and hatred. On September 11, it finally caught up with him.
This profile is part of the Fallen Journalists Memorial, honoring those who sacrificed their lives in service to press freedom and democratic values.
Content included in this publication was generously provided by the Estate of William Biggart, and the Freedom Forum which hosted the Journalists Memorial for 18 years to commemorate journalists who died reporting the news.
Freedom Forum is a partner with the Fallen Journalists Memorial Foundation.
Photo of Bill Biggart, credit: Wendy Doremus