Caroline Dries was just starting her senior year at New York University on 9/11 when she and her roommate were awakened by an explosion at the nearby World Trade Center.

The images Dries captured—the bodies falling from the North Tower and the second plane exploding into a fireball as it hit the South Tower—opened her eyes to the “depth of darkness” in the world.

“A piece of me wishes I never pressed record," she says.