Tim Hetherington was an American-British photojournalist born in 1970. He grew up in Sefton where he studied at the Catholic Primary School, St. Patrick. He then joined the Stonyhurst College. After his graduation, he travelled to China, Tibet and India with the money he received from the will of his grandmother. The trip to these places made him understand that photography is his destiny. So he joined a photography school before returning to college. Afterwards, he learned photojournalism from Colin Jacobson and Daniel Meadows in 1996 in Cardiff.
His first job was in London at The Big Issue as a staff photographer. Hetherington lived around ten years in West Africa, to document the growing political turmoil and its impact on everyday life in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia and other nations. In 2004, he was one of the people who worked on the cinematography of Liberia: An Uncivil War and three years later, he made The Devil Came on Horseback. In 2006, he switched to being an investigator for a while for the Liberia Sanctions Committee of the United Nations Security Council.
In 2007, he won the World Press Photo contest for an image of an exhausted American warrior casing his face with his hands after a day of fight in Afghanistan at the Korangal valley. This work was produced for Vanity Fair. With Sebastian Junger (writer), in 2007 to 2008, he paid many visits to Afghanistan. He was well-known for Restrepo, the documentary film made in 2010. The film, in 2011 was nominated for the Best Documentary Feature at an Academy Award ceremony. In 2010, it received the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival for being the best documentary. Prior to this, in 2009 Hetherington got the Alfred I. duPont Award and in 2008 he received the Rory Peck Features award. In 2011, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America presented the Leadership in Entertainment Award to Tim Hetherington for Restrepo. Again in 2011, he was given the Frontline Club Memorial Tribute Award along with Anton Hammerl and Chris Hondros for their outstanding performance in photojournalism.
In 2010, in The New York Times interview, Hetherington described his time in Afghanistan. He said the Afghan War was becoming difficult to manage, and while working there he bumped into danger on and off. The photojournalist described how shocked he was when he learned that 70% of bombs by America are being dropped on the Korangal Valley. Hence, his image portrayed a lot of action. Hetherington through his photos wanted to make people realize the situation of Afghanistan.
During the Libyan civil war, 2011 that spread tension around the world – while documenting the frontlines of Misrata, the photojournalist was killed. Along with Tim Hetherington, Chris Hondros also became an unexpected target of the uprising. Guy Martin who was also photographing the event got severely injured.
In his honor post his death the Libyan city renamed their largest square in Ajdabiya after Tim Hetherington’s name. Consequently, John McCain, the American Senator sent two flags to the Hetherington’s family during the memorial service in New York.
When he was alive, Hetherington’s work was displayed in many exhibitions, such as in 2009 Sleeping Soldier was shown in the New York Phothe
