On the morning of September 11, I was walking with my camera toward the Arch at Friely—a kind of hub of student traffic—when a young woman told me that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. I went inside the dorm. And there it was live on television. I sat stunned with a couple of students in their room and watched the towers implode and fall.

Some of the students regularly played video games, so I went to see what all the fuss was about. I found myself in a room in front of a screen with controls in my hand, playing soccer for Arsenal in the English Premier Division. It was a highly sophisticated video game that simulated the reality of playing soccer, a thing I did throughout my childhood in Scotland. I was surprised to find the players up to date. I got to be a video soccer star, passing the ball to other soccer stars, playing against such teams as Manchester United, Chelsea, and Liverpool. I even played in a Scottish Cup final and scored a goal. My childhood dreams were coming true by new technologies. But when the game ended, the truth remained. I wasn’t scoring goals in famous British soccer stadiums. I was sitting in a dorm room in Ames, Iowa. I was there to photograph young Americans getting through dorm life, and I didn’t mind my reality in the least.