Tim Hetherington

Timothy (Tim) Hetherington (1970 – April 20, 2011) was a British photojournalist. He was best known for his documentary film Restrepo which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2011. Tim Hetherington died on April 20, 2011 from wounds received during an RPG attack while covering the front lines in the besieged city of Misrata, Libya.

Hetherington first studied literature at Oxford and later photojournalism under Daniel Meadows and Colin Jacobson in Cardiff in 1996.

Hetherington's first job was that of a trainee at The Big Issue (London) where he was the sole staff photographer.

Hetherington spent much of the next decade in West Africa, documenting political upheaval and its effects on daily life in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and other countries. In the Second Liberian Civil War, he and his broadcast colleague James Brabazon were the only foreign journalists to live behind rebel lines, which earned them an execution order from then president Charles Taylor. He was a photographer on Liberia: An Uncivil War (2004) and The Devil Came on Horseback (2007).

In 2006, Hetherington took a break from image making to work as an investigator for the United Nations Security Council's Liberia Sanctions Committee.

Hetherington won the 2007 World Press Photo competition for his picture of a tired American soldier covering his face with his hand following a day of fighting in the Korengal valley, Afghanistan. The work was made for Vanity Fair magazine, for which he was a contributing photographer. Hetherington made several trips to Afghanistan in 2007 and 2008 with writer Sebastian Junger; the two collaborated on the 2010 documentary Restrepo based on their assignment in Afghanistan. The film received the Grand Jury Prize for best documentary at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.

Hetherington received a 2009 Alfred I. duPont Award in broadcast journalism, and the 2008 Rory Peck Features award for his broadcast work titled Afghanistan – The Other War, which was also made in the Korengal Valley and aired on ABC's Nightline.

On April 20, 2011 it was reported that Tim Hetherington had been killed during a R.P.G attack in Libya, which gravely wounded photographers Chris Hondros and Guy Martin. Hetherington had tweeted the previous day, "In besieged Libyan city of Misrata. Indiscriminate shelling by Qaddafi forces. No sign of NATO".