In the late 1990s, a young photographer joined the ranks at The Big Issue. Tim Hetherington had read Classics and English at Oxford then, after graduating, he used £5,000 left to him from his grandmother’s will to travel the world. Journeying through south-east Asia opened his eyes and changed his life. He returned home determined to tell stories through photography.
His first job was as a trainee at The Big Issue. He’d photograph our vendors and star interviewees, definitely preferring to focus on the lives of those whose stories often went untold.
This work led him to West Africa: Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria. Places that had experienced conflict, where the people were still counting the cost. He was embedded with the US Army in Afghanistan, then went to cover the uprising in Libya. It was there, on 20 April 2011 he was killed in a mortar attack in the town of Misrata.
Tim Hetherington is now recognised as one of the country’s most important photojournalists. His archive – including the work he undertook for The Big Issue – has been obtained by the Imperial War Museum, and a major exhibition opening this week,
Storyteller: Photography by Tim Hetherington, highlights his remarkable talent for revealing the human stories caught up in conflict.
Greg Brockett, curator of the exhibition, talks us through some of his striking pictures.
Storyteller: Photography by Tim Hetherington runs at the IWM London 20 April – 29 September 2024
↑This work originated with The Big Issue. They gave him the opportunity to photograph the Millennium Stars when they first came to the UK, then he was invited to go to Liberia and continue that work. That’s where his connection with Liberia started.
He came to know these young people really well. It was his first real engagement with conflict and I think it set this idea that he wanted to treat conflict differently. He didn’t want to photograph it in a way that was similar to the news media, which wanted to get across tropes around guns and violence and trauma.
The Big Issue pictures had an impact on how his work developed. He focused on the human perspective and human impact of conflict. I see that early work as being fundamental.
←This is the last self-portrait Hetherington took. He was an unusually self-refle
