By Fredy Builes

It began as a normal summer day in cold Bogota, with bright sun lighting up the morning. I had just picked up one of my favorite lenses from a repair shop, and was carrying a camera and wide angle lens in a bag while heading for a local university which I have done photo assignments for. As I talked to Vicky, the head of the journalism school, all of a sudden a great explosion shook us. In her eyes I saw the same fear that I was feeling, as the deafening sound left us speechless. It was only instinct that carried me to the street.

I ran out of the university towards the place of the explosion like a bull being released into the ring. Ground zero was right on a nearby street in downtown Bogota, where attacks like this haven’t happened in a very long time. I walked through the strange atmosphere of shocked people, deafening noise and fear, to reach the epicenter. I was surrounded by terror, blood, screams, sobs, rumors of another bomb, and death exposed for all to see.