Two Photojournalists Killed in Libya Today. 20•April•11

For Tim and Chris.

MISRATA, LIBYA (April 20, 2011) – Academy Award-nominated photojournalist Tim Hetherington, 40, and Pulitzer Prize-nominated photojournalist Chris Hondros, 41, of Getty Images were killed today when they were hit during a mortar and grenade attack in Misrata, Libya.

I've closely followed and greatly admired Hondros' work for a few years; particularly his images made in Liberia during civil war fighting there in Monrovia in 2003 (above). I remember his work back then crossing my electronic picture desk almost nightly when I was a night photo-editor at the NY Daily News. He's probably best known for this haunting, iconic image of the crying Iraqi girl after American soldiers gunned down her parents at a checkpoint in Tal-Afar, Iraq in January 2005 (right):

This is a video interview he did with MSNBC back in 2007. Many of his icon images from Iraq, Liberia and Afghanistan are featured in the interview.

Tributes to Tim Hertherington from publications around the world can be viewed here on his agency's site: Panos Pictures of London. I also found this video he produced on his work, called Diary. What a wonderful collection of his work and a brilliant way to see what he's seen. If you want to see how good digital video shot with a DSLR can be, you owe it yourself to watch this piece... ~cg.

Diary (2010) from Tim Hetherington on Vimeo.

Hetherington also produced the Academy Award nominated documentary film RESTREPO, and was a previous 2008 World Press Photo Picture of the Year winner for the image of an American soldier exhausted in a bunker in the Korengal Valley of Afghanistan (bottom).