Photo tribute to photographer killed in Libya 5 years ago
Five years ago today, April 20, 2011, in rebel-held Misrata, award-winning photographers Chris Hondros, 41, and Tim Hetherington, 40, were killed by a mortar. Two other photographers suffered injuries in the attack. Hondros and Hetherington courageously photographed in some of the most dangerous places in the world and produced gutsy, unflinching photos. They earned the hard-won label of conflict photographers.
The New York-based Hondros traveled the world's hotspots, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, for Getty photo agency, but he also had an eye for life's quiet moments. Here's a look at some of his work.
This image, part of a series, of Samar Hassan screaming after her parents were killed by U.S. soldiers with the 25th Infantry Division in a shooting January 18, 2005 in Tal Afar, Iraq was one of Chris Hondros' most well known for the moment it captured.
Chris Hondros - Iraq
The troops fired on the Hassan family car when it unwittingly approached them during a dusk patrol in the tense northern Iraqi town. Parents Hussein and Camila Hassan were killed instantly, and a son Racan, 11, was seriously wounded in the abdomen. Racan, who lost the use of his legs, was treated later in the U.S.
Two children are held by U.S. soldiers with the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry Stryker Brigade Combat Team of the 25th Infantry Division out of Ft. Lewis, Washington after the shooting. According to the U.S. Army, six children in the in the car survived.
Chris Hondros - Libya
Misrata had been under siege for nearly two months and the situation was increasingly dire in the one of the last rebel-held cities in Western Libya in 2011. The group of photographers got to the heavily contested city by sea from Benghazi, the rebel capital. The had been working together near the front lines when they were struck by a rocket-propelled grenade
Always in the thick of the action, this is one of a series of Chris Hondro's last images, taken the day he was killed in Misrata, Libya.
A Libyan rebel fighter runs up a burning stairwell during an effort to dislodge some ensconced government loyalist troops who were firing on them from an upstairs room during house-to-house fighting on Tripoli Street in downtown Misrata on April 20, 2011.
Libya
Rebel fighters carefully move into a building where they had trapped government loyalist troops during street fighting on Tripoli Street in downtown Misurata, Libya on April 20, 2011.
Libya
Libyan rebel fighters carry out a comrade wounded during an effort to dislodge some ensconced government loyalist troops who were firing on them from a building (background) during house-to-house fighting on Tripoli Street in downtown Misrata, Libya, April 20, 2011.
Egypt
Anti-government protesters rally after a speech by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Tahrir Square February 10, 2011 in Cairo, Egypt.
President Hosni Mubarak made a statement saying that he had given some powers to his vice President, but would not resign or leave the country, leaving a crowd of anti-government protesters disappointed and furious after early reports he might step down.
Egypt
A supporter of embattled Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak rides a camel through the melee during a clash between pro-Mubarak and anti-government protesters in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, February 2, 2011.
Thousands of supporters of Egypt's long-time president and opponents of the regime clashed in Tahrir Square, throwing rocks and fighting with improvised weapons, after Mubarak announced he would not run for another term, but would stay in power until elections later in the year.
Liberia
Joseph Duo, a Liberian militia commander loyal to the government, exults after firing a rocket-propelled grenade at rebel forces at a key strategic bridge July 20, 2003 in Monrovia, Liberia.
Hondros hadn't known Duo's name at the time he took his photos. The two didn't formally meet until 2005 when Hondros went in search of him. Duo, 28, was decommissioned and unemployed with a wife and three children.
Because the former fighter said he wanted a better life, Hondros found a school and paid his tuition to complete high school and learn job skills. Hondros continued to help Duo for several years and pay part of his college education as well. The last part of the story was only known when the Liberian posted condolences about Hondros' death on Facebook, where the two had stayed in touch.
9/11
Early morning light hits the smoke and wreckage of the World Trade Center September 13, 2001 in New York City, two days after the twin towers were destroyed when hit by two hijacked passenger jets.
Libya
Ali Salem el-Faizani, 10, stands at a street corner while working as a traffic cop April 15, 2011 in Benghazi, Libya.
Schools were closed throughout eastern Libya for nearly two months due to the ongoing civil conflict.
Libya
Libyan rebels pray while a comrade stands with a rocket propelled grenade launcher on the western edge of Ajdabiyah April 8, 2011 in Ajdabiyah, Libya.
Afghanistan
A man stands on a road near flowers and drying furnaces for bricks in rural Dand District, just south of Kandahar, Afghanistan, June 14, 2010.
Iraq
A U.S. soldier with the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry out of Ft. Lewis, Washington, crosses a road at sunrise on the way to conducting rural house to house searches in Mukhisa, Iraq, December 3, 2007.
It was the soldiers first visit to the area since two of their comrades died there two weeks before, killed by a roadside bomb that detonated during a similar dismounted patrol.
Haiti
US Army Lt. Col. Robert Malsby of Marietta, Georgia (R) of the 82nd Airborne Division comforts Narlie, age 4, who was seriously wounded in the Haitian earthquake and has been earmarked for emergency care aboard the USS Comfort January 21, 2010 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Haiti
A burned skull lies in the wreckage of a hotel in Port-au-Prince, Haiti after the massive earthquake, January 27, 2010.
Liberia
Refugees crowd into a Masonic temple converted into a camp July 15, 2003 in the Liberian capital of Monrovia.
Hundreds of thousands of Liberians converged on the capital as they flee from fighting in the country's 13-year civil war.
Iraq
In the orange fog of an Iraqi sandstorm, U.S. troops of the 2nd Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment of the 10th Mountain Division carry a wounded Iraqi man who started running from their platoon during a routine morning patrol and was shot in Baghdad, May 16, 2008.
John Kerry
Democratic presidential canidate Senator John Kerry plays his guitar February 18, 2004 in flight enroute to Washington, DC.
Amish
An Amish girl, Elizabeth Stoltzfus, watches her father Daniel Stolzfus while they milk cows October 22, 2003 in Wakefield, Pennsylvania.
Haiti
Haitians reach out for relief supplies from the World Food Program January 20, 2010 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Fort Bragg
Sgt. Patrick Hopkins (R) of Jacksonville, Florida kisses his fiancee Cara Benz as he returns from a year-long tour in Iraq with the US Army's 82nd Airborne Division July 30, 2010 in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
Over 300 paratroopers in the 1st Brigade of the storied 82nd Airborne returned home.
Hurricane Katrina
A man walks through brackish water as he makes his way through the poor Ninth Ward neighborhood September 4, 2005 in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Hurricane Katrina dealt New Orleans a devastating blow when it came ashore August 29, flooding the city and causing a death toll that officials fear will be in the thousands.
Guantanamo
A detainee is taken from a questioning session at camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, February 6, 2002.
Iraq
An Iraqi boy looks out from a room where women and children are sequestered at Sgt.Trevor Warrior of the 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment of the Second Infantry Division (the "Stryker Brigade") December 2, 2006 in the tense Shulah neighborhood of Baghdad, Iraq.
Haiti
A U.S. Navy helicopter flies over as looters take goods from the rubble of a shop in the downtown business district in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake on January 17, 2010 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Middle East
Israeli soldiers embrace after safely making it back to Israel from Lebanon of August 14, 2006 on the Israeli-Lebonese border.
Israel halted its offensive against Hezbollah guerrillas as a United Nations cease-fire went into effect following over a month of conflict.
Afghanistan
Afghan schoolgirls seen through the window of a Humvee wave to a passing American convoy June 26, 2010 in downtown Herat, Afghanistan.
Iraq
A U.S. Marine pulls down a picture of Saddam Hussein at a school April 16, 2003 in Al-Kut, Iraq.
Saddam Hussein
Ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein sits in court as his trial on charges of genocide resumed in Baghdad, November 27, 2006.
New York
A trader walks across the floor of the New York Stock Exchange at the end of the trading day in New York City on March 5, 2009, with stocks finishing lower as investors worried about further banking industry woes and automaker GM's viability.
Egypt
Food is offered to a wounded anti-government protester who spent the night manning makeshift barriers protecting the anti-government movement in Tahrir Square the morning of February 6, 2011 in Cairo, Egypt.
New York
Michael Patrick Shepherd, 3, stands next to his father, firefighter Mike Shepherd, during the funeral for New York firefighter Joseph Graffagnino on August 23, 2007 in Brooklyn, New York.
Graffagnino, 33, was killed along with another firefighter battling a blaze at the abandoned Deutsche Bank building next to Ground Zero on August 18.
Chris Hondros
American photojournalist Chris Hondros is walking during the siege of Monrovia, Liberia on August 3, 2003.
Chris Hondros a multi-award winning photographer for Getty Images, was killed on April 20, 2011, along with photographer Tim Heatherington, while covering fighting in the city of Misrata, Libya when a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) struck a house he was in.
Hondros' fiance, Christina Piaia, and Getty Images established the Chris Hondros Fund in honor of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated photographer to support the work of photojournalists. Each year the Getty Images and Chris Hondros Fund Award is presented to a photojournalist who exemplifies Hondros' legacy. The 2016 winner is Bryan Denton, who will receive a $20,000 grant.