Tim Hetherington: From Liberian Rebels to the Afghan Front Lines

Photographer and documentary filmmaker Tim Hetherington speaks at a forum, 'A Conversation on Liberia and Afghanistan' on Dec. 8 at New York University. (Aloysio Santos/The Epoch Times)

NEW YORK—He has taken a unique approach to documentary journalism: living his stories. From the battlefields of the Liberian Civil War to the front lines in Afghanistan, documentary filmmaker and award-winning photographer Tim Hetherington has experienced his stories in ways that few have.

During a forum at New York University on Dec. 8 presented by The Epoch Times, Hetherington explained his art and shared his insights on what he has witnessed.

He has seen what the rebels and soldiers have seen, marched where they marched, and shot a different element of the battle. Rather than focus his work on the carnage and violence which characterizes war, Hetherington instead turned his camera inward—toward the soldiers and the lives behind the uniforms. Young men with guns.

His art took form during the Liberian Civil War which lasted from 1999 to 2003. A friend approached him with an offer he couldn’t refuse—to live with the rebel forces, the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) who would eventually remove President Charles Taylor from power and establish a new rule.

“My work is really born out, initially, as a kind of witnessing or engagement,” said Hetherington.

Rather than make a one-time visit to shoot photos of the aftermath, Hetherington returns again and again, which allows for a “perceptual process” to develop in his work, as he explains it.

“I was kind of inside the war,” he said. “I mean we lived with these guys and there was no way out. We couldn’t fly in or fly out, we lived with them. It was the rainy season, we had little food, and we lived in pretty extreme circumstances.” Hetherington was embedded with Liberian rebels with a friend and fellow journalist.

His photographs of the war are unique. Women casually carrying small rockets, rebel fighters speaking with their loved ones, men sitting on a roadside launching mortars into the Liberian capital city, Monrovia.

There is a personal element to his work which has become his signature. “We often think of a place like Liberia far away and we reduce it to this idea of tribalism, etc, etc. Oftentimes mothers, or husbands, or lovers are the fighters,” Hetherington said, pausing on a photograph of a Liberian rebel speaking with a young woman.

“You never really know what a person’s interpretation of a picture is or what will happen to pictures,” he said. “That’s quite the beautiful thing about images. We like to think we can control them but in many ways we cannot.”

His work in Liberia ended not long after the war ended. Camouflage uniforms turned into ties and suits as the rebel leaders became the country’s leaders. “They were kind of transformed because the young men who had been used for the war were kind of cast off to the side,” he said. “Their leaders got into power.”

The Front Lines

Afghanistan was the next major stop. His feature length documentary film, Restrepo will be released soon and follows a platoon of U.S. soldiers fighting on the front lines against the Taliban.

When he first arrived he focused on the action, “action and bangs” as he describes it. After leaving and returning a few times, he became more interested in the soldiers than the battle. “We became part of the platoon almost,” he said.

Among Hetherington’s images are U.S. troops roughhousing, joking, playing video games in a tent. One of his well-known sets is of soldiers sleeping, showing them as people rather than as images behind dark glasses, uniforms, and guns.

His images are in stark contrast to the conventional photos of heroism and battle. One of Hetherington’s documentaries features soldiers crying after finding one of their friends dead.

“Maybe if we build up empathy with who we’re sending over there, then we'll actually reconsider what we’re asking them to do on our behalf,” said Hetherington. “Showing you dead Afghanis isn’t going to do anything. That’s the conclusion I came to. Showing you dead Liberians isn’t going to do anything.”

“To me, I’m not really interested in style at all,” he said. “I’m only interested in empathy or closeness, or an honesty.”

“What was interesting for me was how little difference there was between the men I spent time with in Liberia and the men I spent time with in Afghanistan,” said Hetherington. “It’s just our perception of it is that somehow Liberia is over there and there’s a difference, but there’s not.”