Empty Plaza and Terraced Lawn
What This Image Shows
The plaza with the crowd gone: the concrete building on the left with an American flag hanging vertically down its face, the terraced amphitheatre lawn stepping away in the centre, and in the far background a small group of people behind metal barriers near the next building. Clear sky, hard light. The only fragmentary text visible reads "CONS" and "ION," part of a larger sign cut off by the frame.
An empty-site photograph is the control against which every crowded frame is measured. It shows the true rise of each terrace, the actual height of the building relative to the lawn, and where the barriers stood — dimensions that a crowd hides completely. Researchers reconstructing an angle need the geometry of this photograph, not the atmosphere of the busy ones.
The barriers still standing in the background place this shortly after the event rather than long before it, and the flag hangs the same way it does in several of the walkthrough stills captured in early October.
Compare with the same view populated in Terraced Crowd Facing the Stage, the walkthrough sequence at Photos, and the venue write-up at UVU.
Related Areas
- Cluster: The Shot and the Shooter Position
- Section: Real Killer
- All photo evidence: Photos