The catastrophe of 9/11 engendered a hitherto unknown immensity of photographic production. The medial processing of this production in the direct aftermath of the events deeply impacted the collective consciousness. This work focuses through the example of this 'catastrophic pictorial production' the contractions held within the perceptual realization of the pictorial sign in the context of the pictorial turn, which is diagnosed as taking place in the Western culture. In the analyses it is shown here how the application of the pictures of two pictorial groups (in The New York Times and the pictorial archive "here is new york") is realized as a trauma.