This footage was taken by photojournalist Tim Hetherington
in Libya. It captures the civil unrest that took hold across the country in 2011.
Tim travelled with anti-Gadhafi fighters across Libya to capture events as they unfolded. He aimed
to go beyond the news coverage and reveal the real people caught in this civil war.
Just weeks later Tim was mortally wounded whilst documenting the fighting in Misrata.
In 2011 Muammar Gaddafi had been in charge in Libya for 42 years since 1969.
That year a revolutionary wave was sweeping through north Africa and the middle east
known as the Arab Spring. The outbreak of civil war opened up Libya's borders
and allowed many journalists to access the country for the first time in over four decades.
Organizations actually claimed that Libya was one of the most dangerous places for journalists to be
working at that time. The situation there was very unpredictable and escalated very rapidly
the anti-Gadhafi fighters on the ground were often very untrained and inexperienced
there was a very strict control measure put on on media coverage of any sort
and reaching the front lines in Libya was often extremely hazardous as well.
The eastern city of Benghazi was at the centre of the anti-Gaddafi uprising with street protests and
open public descent quickly becoming widespread journalists flooded into the city to report on
and document events as they unfolded among them was journalist and photographer Tim Hetherington.
Tim had spent the last decade working in conflict zones his photojournalism had taken him to
countries such as Liberia Afghanistan and Nigeria. In war zones such as Afghanistan journalists
were required to remain embedded with NATO and coalition forces. This restricted their movements
and made access to the front lines very difficult but it did ensure a measure of protection. But the
situation in Libya was different some journalists were able to move freely with anti-Gadhafi forces.
A photojournalist who might have been working in Afghanistan around about that time they were
essentially living with the armed forces day-to-day and so they would have had
appropriate shelter given to them and they wouldn't have been allowed to take
unnecessary risks in quite the same way.
Tim first went to Libya in march 2011 as part of a commission for a human rights charity
documentary work and awards had taken him away from the country
but as Tim watched events unfold he felt compelled to return to Libya
to document the situation on the ground as it dominated headlines around the world.
We can't be totally sure how he wanted to use the work that he
made her but from his diaries and from the conversations he had with some of his colleagues
it seems that what he wanted to do was to further explore how his presence as
a photojournalist may affect the subjects and the people he photographed. So he was really
interested in how his presence might affect their behaviour and appearance and how the soldiers who
photograph might have taken inspiration from images they'd seen previously of the conflicts.
Many of the anti-Gadhafi fighters Tim travelled with had no formal training
and were poorly equipped being largely made up of volunteers Tim's portraits
captured them as ordinary people that had felt compelled to take up arms and fight.
Unlike a lot of journalists who were in Libya at that time Tim Hetherington had
a different approach because he wasn't as interested in breaking news stories
he wanted to get under the surface of conflict and to explore its many different layers.
He was interested in as he would say real people in real situations and I think this often meant
that his projects were more long-term and in many ways more thoughtful I think it's also important
to look at the photographs themselves and you can see from his photographs that he's taken
very brightly lit portraits which are quite different from what you expect to see in a
conflict zone and I think maybe the reason he did this was because he wanted to show his audiences
that he had a connection with his subjects and he actually described the sort of setup he used
there in his diary as being a bit more like a wedding photographer just because of how
well lit they were and because of the engagement he had with his subjects.
In 2011 the UN security council passed a resolution authorizing western powers
to undertake necessary measures to protect civilians in the country a coalition of forces
targeted Libyan air defences and military targets these operations were known by NATO
forces as Operation Unify Protector and in the British military as Operation Ellamy.
The British government contributed air strikes and surveillance from Typhoon and Tornado GR4 aircraft
Tim photographed the apparent remnants of these strikes showing blackened remains
of Libyan army vehicles abandoned at the side of the desert road as he travelled
alongside the anti-Gadhafi fighters the front line in Libya was a dangerous one
because it was so fluid and journalists had to make their way around the country
by traveling with the anti-Gadhafi forces but also finding fixes and contact on the ground.
Along with a small group of photographers and journalists
Tim documented the street to street fighting in the city of Misurata.
This was a strategically important city as it had been besieged by loyalist Gadhafi forces. Despite
airstrikes from above fighting on the ground in Misrata continued cantering on Tripoli Street.
Tim and other journalists worked in close proximity to the anti-Gadhafi forces
as they fought to remove loyalist troops from positions in shops office blocks and
rooftops. Tim took still photos and video footage capturing the human perspective of this fighting.
Tim went with a group of other journalists to what was considered the front line in Misrata
which was a besieged lifting at that time and a lot of the fighting going on there on the ground
was street to street building to building and so the journalists themselves were quite vulnerable
in that situation on the 20th April 2011 a mortar round struck a street just off Tripoli Street in
Misrata and he was mortally wounded along with fellow photojournalist Chris Hondros.
Obviously the nature of photojournalism in conflict zones is especially dangerous and
carries extremely high risks and I think it's a really pertinent reminder of that.
The equipment Tim used and the photographs he shot in Libya are being preserved at IWM along with the
rest of his archive, forming a complete record of his output as a conflict photographer and
trans-media journalist. The distinctly self-aware and visionary approach of his work offers a
unique insight into the events of 2011 and a conflict which would lead to years of turmoil.
Tim and his work was really much more interested in themes within conflict which are less focused
on in in the news media so he was interested in for example the relationship between young
men and violence and he was interested in his presence and the effect that had
on the ground but also the long and very varied consequences of conflict as well so there was
very many different levels to what he was wanting to explore I think that's going to
be the main legacy of his work as we go forward and keep looking at it in its different forms.
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 so 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.
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