Photo journalist Tim Hetherington was killed in 2011 while covering the battlegrounds of Libya. His photographs of American soldiers in Afghanistan, Libyan fighters, and the terrain of war, powerfully depict the human side of warfare, both tender and tragic. Within the devastation that modern-age conflict renders to the environment, Hetherington captures images that remind us that life goes on among the rubble.
There is an almost meditative stillness in Hetherington’s work - as if time for a moment stops and we can see the face of war as clearly as the noonday sun.
Yossi Milo Gallery in New York City is currently presenting an exhibition of Hetherington’s photographs and video work. The exhibit runs through May 19.
Here’ one of the videos that will be on exhibit at Yossi Milo Gallery: Hetherington’s video Diary:
British photo journalist and filmmaker Tim Hetherington was killed in Libya today. He was 40 years old.
Tim Hetherington, an Oscar-nominated filmmaker and photographer, and Chris Hondros, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated photographer, were killed in the city of Misrata after being hit by mortar fire during fighting between Muammar Gaddafi’s forces and Libyan rebels. Two other photographers, Guy Martin and Chris Brown, were also injured.
Hetherington was a contributing photographer for Vanity Fair, and co-directed the Afghan War film “Restrepo” with author Sebastian Junger. That film was nominated for an Oscar for best documentary in 2011.
In his last tweet, Hetherington writes, “In besieged Libyan city of Misrata. Indiscriminate shelling by Qaddafi forces. No sign of NATO.”
As I write this, no one yet knows who killed Hetherington and Hondros but already there are accusatory fingers pointing in many different directions. Stateside, the deaths of these journalists will be used to further the agendas of the right and the left. In Libya, Gaddafi will blame the rebels and the rebels will blame Gaddafi. We will hear rumors that CIA operatives were behind this as part of an effort to ramp up USA involvement in the conflict, to escalate things to all-out war. That sound in the background is the dull fluttering of idiots flapping their lips in the chatrooms of the Huffington Post and the New York Times. Everybody will have their angle. And this is mine: both men deserve better than being reduced to fodder for propaganda. Hetherington and Hondos were just doing their jobs, which they did brilliantly, jobs that are becoming increasingly perilous.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists there have been more than 80 documented attacks on the press in Libya since February.
They include 4 fatalities, numerous injuries, 49 detentions, 11 assaults, two attacks on news facilities, the jamming of two international television transmissions, at least four instances of obstruction, the expulsion of two international journalists, and the interruption of Internet service. At least six local journalists are missing amid speculation they are in the custody of security forces. One international journalist and two media support workers are also unaccounted for.
It is important that we see the images and hear the voices coming out of these war zones. Only then can we understand the depth of the pain and the extent of the horror humanity is capable of inflicting upon itself. It seems to me that without genuinely confronting this horror we are doomed to repeating it…just as we are now.
How far down do we go before coming up again? Is there a glimmering of light in the dark pulp of man’s inhumanity. Yes, even in the awful carnage of war, there is poetry. Wherever there is life, there is poetry. Finding that poetry within the deafening clatter of broken bones and battered flesh is a rare gift. To extract a shred of humanity from the cruel charnel house of war gives us some hope of redemption. In the photos and films of Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros, we saw and felt the human heart that beats under the veils of hate and madness. They were blood poets - artists that went down into the pit so that we didn’t have to, went down to find that last shard of humanity in that dark hole. Do you understand? They did it to save ourselves from ourselves. Their mission was to find the humanity in our human-made hell - to return with something that recalls to us the glory of being alive.
Diary is a highly personal and experimental film that expresses the subjective experience of my work, and was made as an attempt to locate myself after ten years of reporting. It’s a kaleidoscope of images that link our western reality to the seemingly distant worlds we see in the media.” Tim Hetherington.
