Which Way Is The Front Line From Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington

You know, what's interesting

about war is that there's

lots of generalizations made up about it.

But in going to these extremities, that what's

interesting is that you see

that even in these terrible

times, in these terrible moments,

in these terrible extremities,

that people are still human.

I think that that for me is

like the redeeming factor

of the human experience.

No, that sounds too fucking bullshit.

Well, I think it was good.

I think we're almost there.

You know, there's a lot of people who make

kind of generic--

No, I don't want to say,

"There's a lot of people, you know.

I think the important thing for me is

to make work that is connected to people,

you know.

Uh, I like to--Oh, shit. Sorry, man.

Ha ha ha!

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Start over. Yeah.

How can I get it--I just kind of, like, bloop!

Ah...

I think the important thing for me is

to connect with real people, you know,

to document them in these extreme

circumstances, you know,

where there aren't any kind of neat

solutions or where you can't put

any kind of neat guidelines

and say, "This is what it's about..."

or, "This is what it's about..."

It's not.

I hope that my work kind of shows that.

Yeah, that was strong.

Yeah?

Yeah.

[Radio playing American pop music]

So which way is the-- which way is the front line

from here?

That way.

Jesus, Guillermo.

You got to stay down.

Fuck. Look at that, nice little shooter.

If we got shot at, just jump on it.

[Shouting commands in foreign language]

Good.

Crazy.

Yes, it's crazy.

[Men talking and shouting in foreign language]

[Men talking and shouting in foreign language]

TIM, VOICE-OVER: I risk my life

for a lot of different things.

As a documentary photographer,

I probe this idea the whole time,

of what am I doing and why am I doing it.

You know, a single photo isn't necessarily a story,

so you have to ask yourself the question, "Why do you

put yourself in that position?"

And I do it for lots of different reasons.

I do it also for personal reasons, you know,

as much as I do it for the objective truth.

In war, you see so many crazy things happening.

You see all sorts of different human emotions

crystallized.

Reporting on these things that are very complex

and political gives you

an insight into human behavior that imbues

your reporting with a sense of meaning and significance.

It's addictive in that way, yeah.

TIM, VOICE-OVER: As a photographer, you need

to develop a way of working that suits your personality

but also allows you to bring out

the sort of subject matter that you think is important.

[Kids talking in foreign language]

TIM, VOICE-OVER: At the root of my work is

really this kind of whole idea of intimacy.

I become deeply embedded emotionally

in all the work I do.

Wow! She's really a bright character, eh?

How old are you?

9 years old.

9 years old?

What's her favorite time at school?

You seem very intelligent for 9, huh?

Just keep looking in here and don't move.

TIM, VOICE-OVER: It's necessary, I think,

in raising sort of consciousness

of serious political or social events

to create something that works on a more

imaginative level, something that will allow the viewer

to engage creatively with the subject.

[Speaking foreign language]

Can you see me?

Hello, Britad!

OK, we're going to swap now,

and you're going to come and sit here.

TIM, VOICE-OVER: For me, it's all

about personalization.

Often, we see scenes of disaster,

and it's almost like we forget

that the people imaged are individuals,

with individual stories and lives.

You're done, OK, no problem.

Ask him, "Was that painful?"

"Yeah."

It was painful.

Yeah, that's the sad truth about photography.

TIM, VOICE-OVER: I got into photography because I got

into travel.

I lived in 12 different places in Britain;

I never had a community that I lived with.

And what I do now is a reflection of that.

Because of my work, we moved around quite--quite a lot.

I don't say that we were-- the family was gypsies,

but Tim certainly was brought up in a family

that were used to living

in different parts of the country.

He was always very comfortable and confident

with people, and I think that was

one of his great gifts,

that he could communicate at whatever level,

whether it was children or adults,

and in whatever condition.

As an undergraduate at Oxford, Tim had a very wide

and enquiring mind and was intensely interested

in everything that took his attention.

He finished his degree, and he went to India.

After a year, we couldn't get him back.

Had three faxes in over two years from him

from odd places.

He was a person who seldom became a tourist.

His mind and the interest led him

really to immerse himself.

That sort of commonplace impulse was

of the foundation of really the rest of his life.

It kind of occurred to me that we were living

in an image-based world

and that that would be kind of a really

interesting way to communicate with people.

Eventually a friend of mine said,

"You know, if you really want to do this properly,

you should go back to college,"

and there was a course in Cardiff that he pointed out,

and it was about photojournalism.

And he said, "Well, that's

telling stories with pictures," and I thought,

well, that's a pretty--

that's kind of what I want to do.

Well, as I remember Tim in '96, he was a big,

rangy fellow.

Tall, thin, very affable,

and he had a nice laugh

and a relaxed manner

about him, but he was also, obviously, very bright

and he was also warm.

My whole belief--about photography is that it's

about engaging with people, and Tim engaged with people

with knobs on.

I think he was willing to put himself

in difficult situations.

He did a piece about a hospital,

and as it turned out, he had spent sort of 24 hours

at A & E, which most of us wouldn't, you know,

dream of doing at the time.

It's a lot of dedication

to spend 24 hours in that situation.

It was a pointer to the sort of way he worked

and what he did later on.

Tim embraced--

and he was the only student that year

who really got into it-- he embraced multi-media.

I think of him as probably my first genuinely

modern student.

He saw right from the word go

that the future wasn't going to be just about print.

The future is about learning to work across many

different platforms, for many different audiences,

in many different ways.

It's about having a subject matter that you've immersed

yourself in completely.

And he had a way of being able to do that

that was remarkable, and not many people

have been able to do that.