All language subtitles for Hondros.2017.1080p.WEBRip.x264-[YTS.LT]

Uh, OK.

Journalist friends
of mine say of all the people
that do journalism,

war photographers
are the craziest.

Can you talk about that?

Well, the problem
with war photography

is that there's
absolutely no way
to do it from a distance.

You have to be close.

You can't do it from your hotel,

you can't do it
from across the street,
across the bridge.

You have to be there.

There's really no substitute
for that.

So, you have to figure out ways
to get in the midst of things,

no matter what's happening.

And you have to suspend
your reason sometimes

to do that and I think
that's where that reputation
comes from.

Name a country
torn apart by war
in the last six years or so

and chances are
Chris Hondros has been there.

He has worked in most of
the world's major conflict zones

since the late 1990s.

Iraq, Liberia, Kosovo.

Through the lens of his camera,
Chris Hondros has taken...

Pulitzer Prize nominated
war photographer

Chris Hondros
for Getty Images...

Chris is a staff photographer

for the international
photo agency Getty Images.

He's just returned from
his ninth stint in Iraq.

I'm not one of these people
that got into war photography

for the rush.

I'm not into adventure sports
or anything like that either.

I mean,
I believe in photography,
I believe in the role

that journalists
and photographers
specifically play

in our whole system
of international conflict

and how we resolve differences.

We have a role to play
and I would like to be involved
in that.

Well, I'm gonna guess this is
maybe the earliest picture

I've got of Chris and this is me
taking this photo

just like,
"Here I am in high school"
and, lo and behold,

there's the guy who would end up
being my best friend.

Pretty young, Chris.

Um...

This is a tiny little portion

of all of the experiences that
he had throughout his life.

Experiences that practically
no one in the world

has ever had.

He had a front seat
to every major world event

of the last decade.

He was my best friend
but that doesn't even begin

to scratch the surface
of how I felt about him.

And there's an instinct
that I've got that

parts of him are still
out there somewhere.

That parts of him
can be found in the people

and the places
that were important to him.

Some of the most powerful,
in my opinion anyway,

some of
the most powerful pictures

that you've taken
were in Liberia
and it just seems to me

in looking at them that
you had a deeper connection

to what was going on there.
Am I right?

I was quite fond, yeah,
of Liberians and Liberia.

I was passionate
about that war I think

because it was a war
that could be
really easily prevented.

You know, there were things that
the international community

could have done that summer
that would have prevented

the caustic situation there.

Chris had a very firm belief

in what he wanted
his photography to be about.

I could drop him
into any situation

and I didn't have to explain
why he was there.

He believed in the power
of shining a light

in places that otherwise
would be dark.

In 2003,
I was covering what ended up

being the climax
of the Liberian civil war
in West Africa.

The rebels were starting
to move in towards Monrovia,

towards the capital, trying
to push Charles Taylor

out of power, and you know,
we were hearing about a lot

of attacks on civilians,
atrocities, massacres.

And we were going and trying
to verify this stuff.

I met Chris, I was
helping him out
going to the frontlines

to cover a war
that we were dying,

we were killing each other.

Chris left United States
that is more peaceful

and came here to tell our story

and I can recall
the risks that he took.

Photographers always want to go
where there is shooting.

They say,
"Why is that shooting going on?"
They say, "I want to get there."

The armies on both sides
at this point

had just broken down
into pure militia.

They were mostly shirtless,
a lot of child soldiers.

Bullets flying everywhere.

We'd see children

as young as seven, eight,
nine years old
with AK-47s.

These kids were starving,
hungry, hopped up on drugs

that they'd been given
by the commanders.

There was an element
of real madness to it.

There was one particularly
bad day when I had been out,

I'd been caught
in this mortar barrage,

and I remember running,
trying to get back

to the hotel because it
had a thick concrete ceiling

and I thought I could hide
in the basement
or something and be safe.

A few minutes later,
the school across the street

was hit
with a huge artillery shell.

There were all these civilians
packed into the courtyard,

they'd been taking refuge there
and the shell dropped

right in the middle of them.

And Chris ran into the hotel
and he grabbed me

and he said,
"The school's been hit
across the street,

we've gotta go over
and photograph."

And I was so shell shocked
I was like,
"No more, I'm done, I can't."

I just, sort of,
cowered in the hotel,
I couldn't go back out.

He went back out into it.

He photographed the whole thing
and he helped get people
to the hospital.

You learn how
to face your fears,
I guess, in these situations.

I mean if you don't do it,
you've wasted all your time,
right?

I mean, you've spent
all this time and difficulty

getting to these situations
to do the work

that you feel
that needs to be done

and if you don't go that
final mile to actually perform

under the stressful situations,
then you've wasted
all your time.

The frontline of the war
for most of the summer

was this pair of bridges
and rebel troops

were on one side
and the government troops
were on the other.

And the first couple days that
that area was the front-line,
I ventured down there.

We were
with the government soldiers

just before
they were about to charge
the bridge and I thought

it would be way too dangerous
to do those.

It was just exposed,
nowhere to hide,
nowhere to duck,

bullets were flying everywhere.

But something clicked in me
at the moment

when I was thinking about it
and just as they
were about to charge.

You know, I kind of realized
at that moment
that my whole career

as a photographer in
a way had been leading up

to a moment like that.

And that the picture
was on the bridge,

it wasn't 50 feet away
from the middle of the bridge,

it was on the bridge.

There was no shortcut to that.

This is the iconic photo.

You know, and Chris at his best
which was often,

he had the ability
to kind of find those photos.

I think when I first saw it,
it was immediate concern
for his safety.

I was just like, man,
he's getting close.

The thing you have to understand
in a situation like that

there's still
probably bullets flying.

You're worried
about being exposed.

And being able to keep
a presence of mind

to really focus on the subject,

to frame the subject,
to get that kind
of pinnacle moment

is really pretty damn difficult.

When you'd hear him
tell the story about

how dangerous that bridge was
and how much metal

was flying around and you think,
to make this graceful photograph

amid all that is just amazing.

And it's one thing
that it happened,

it's another thing that
there's another person
documenting it.

One of
the most compelling photos

from Liberia is the very young
Liberian soldier

who is jumping for joy,
he just hit his target.

That picture,
I'm still not quite sure

what it means, you know,
it has an ambiguity to me

that is still kind of,
I'm exploring, I think.

Does it celebrate war
or is it something else?

I think
a lot of different people
would bring different things

away from that picture

and even I haven't quite
figured out what it all means.

I remember
looking at all the pictures
that came out of Liberia.

It was mayhem.

And I think Chris spent a lot
of time through his actions...

...deeply empathizing
with people
and their conditions.

And really wanted
the world to empathize
with their conditions, too.

There was about
maybe 10 photographers

that pitched up there,
and we started saturating

the news with images
from the war.

Suddenly, the UN got involved
and held hearings

and started assembling
a peacekeeping force.

I mean, there was
a real cause and effect.

Did Chris ever talk
to you about why he felt

it was so important to
go cover these conflicts?

Well, I told him a few stories
you see when they were children,
you see.

And they always said,
"Mom, tell a story
about your childhood," you see.

So, in the evenings I would
then tell them stories
the way I grew up.

You see, it was totally
different than it was
here in the States.

Four thousand planes
smashed the Atlantic wall...

When the war started,
Second World War,

it creeped closer and closer
into the small towns.

So I told him some stories.

Planes being shot down,
and then they were burning,
you see,

and then people jumped out
and things like that.

How 'bout you,
Chris, what scares you?

Nothing.

Sure.

Yeah.

But what really scares you?

Nothing really does scare me.

He was always
a very independent, self assured

already when he was small.

And I don't know.

Maybe genes, maybe,
I don't know.

You knew that he was going to be

a photographer, right, I mean,
was it clear to you?

Uh, yeah, he was
always talking about that.

My husband was very, very upset
and I told my husband,

I said, "Zip it, whatever
he wants to do, he will do

and leave him alone."

It was very important to me
and I said,
"You have the opportunity,

you have the means,
you have everything
here, what we did not have."

You see, I grew up
in the turmoil there.

What we did not have.

I said, "use it."

Chris and I were so intent
on becoming journalists

that we oftentimes
would try to skip ahead

of what we were learning
in college and just go out
and do it.

Our first assignment together

was to cover Bill Clinton's
inauguration in 1993.

He calls me up and says,
"Come on, let's go cover this
for the student newspaper."

We arrived in Washington
without press credentials

or even the proper attire
to be able to get into

an inaugural ball
to get the story

that we needed, so Chris
managed to bluff his way

into securing a pair
of all-access passes

and I managed to break into
my dead uncle's wardrobe

and steal a couple of
hugely oversized shirts

and sport coats.

But we ended up
getting into the ball

and getting the shot
that we needed,

so it worked out perfectly.

Chris hired me as an intern
after I got out of college.

I immediately saw,
I was really surprised
how young he was.

I mean,
here's a guy who's my age.

He was chief photographer
at a paper.

Um, however small
the newspaper was,
he was still running the show.

You know, police scanners
always on next to his bed,

chasing every single bit
of spot news
that there was out there.

The first very sophomoric thing
a young photographer does

is look at National Geographic
and say,

"Oh, my gosh,
I could shoot those pictures."

Chris was pretty adamant that
he was gonna go
shoot those pictures.

And that he was gonna figure out
the transit route to go do that.

Working in a small
daily newspaper in America

to going
and covering international wars

is a pretty big step and there's
no instruction manual

to kind of tell you
how to do it.

Just to sell everything
and go off to Kosovo

is a bit of a risky move,
but we were ready
to make that jump.

Being really ambitious,
young, inexperienced,

you don't really have
the proper idea
of how much danger

you're putting yourself in
and it's very common

to just think that
nothing can happen to you,

that you're an observer
and somehow that protects you.

But when there's actual combat
going on,

that is the only thing
that teaches you,

this is what it really means
to be here.

This is where
you really start to see
what people are made of

and I could see what Chris
was made of and was clear
that this wasn't gonna be

the last trip to Kosovo
or any other place for him.

Well, to be very honest,
he was there three times,
I heard.

But we only knew of one time.

He said, "I didn't want
to worry you guys."

I was always trusting
his judgment, you see.

So, when I didn't hear from him
for two or three weeks or so,

well, he was busy.

Getty Images
wanted to start
a news wire service.

We were looking
to make a splash,

we were looking to make
our mark in the news scene.

He brought that higher level
of photography with him.

It really influenced
all the other photographers

who were working
with Getty at the time.

You could call it
the "Hondros effect".

The early days of Getty,

we were really the only wire
that was doing something,

trying to do something different

and kind of fresh
and certainly more creative

in a broader interpretation
of what a news photograph

is and can be.

The absolute key for us
in starting our news business

was that we wanted
the photographers
to tell the story.

And in talking to Chris,
that's exactly

what he was doing and what
he really, really wanted to do.

He wanted that flexibility
and that ability

to tell the story
the way he saw it.

And for him,
the story was always about

the people being impacted
by the conflict

or by the disaster as opposed
to the disaster itself.

We have
a breaking news story
to tell you about,

apparently,
a plane has just crashed

into the World Trade Center
here in New York City.

It happened just
a few moments ago apparently.

The morning of September 11th,
I got a phone call

from Chris saying,
"Turn on the television set."

...a great deal of concern.

"You've gotta
quit your job today,

you should come
to New York tonight."

I was holding a baby bottle
or changing a diaper
or something

and I thought a lot about how

our lives diverged
at that point.

I'll never forget
it was some days after 9/11

and we were, you know,
all in the office,
we were working crazy hours

and suddenly I get word
that Hondros is on a plane
to Pakistan.

And I just said, "What?"

I hadn't even thought
about Pakistan.

He was probably
a half step ahead of us

in terms of where was this
story going next,

where was this
gonna be happening, so, usually,

he would just call
in the morning and say,

"Hey, this is what I'm doing
rather than wait

for anyone to go
and send him anywhere."

Really, inevitably, that moment
was the beginning of Chris
just going.

There was nothing
to turn him back
and for the next 10 years,

that's all he did, he went.

From then on,
I was seeing Chris' work on

the cover of every newspaper
in the world.

Do you know what spot news is?

You know,
spot news is car crash,
bomb blows up...

...plane into a building.

The photos
from that specific day...

have a lot of impact,
a lot of emotion.

But I think Chris
was deeply interested
in how the story transpired.

What wisdom are we supposed
to derive from this?

And I think Chris felt
a responsibility to answer
a lot of those questions.

When the invasion started,

I rented a SUV and...

and drove across the border
into Iraq.

Entering Baghdad
when the city was going to fall

would be of supreme
historical importance.

You want to be there
when that happened.

And in fact, we came across
another couple of SUVs

with another couple of
Newsweek journalists

who were also hell-bent
on making it to Baghdad

before anybody else.

Shot for a few days, no problem.

Followed the main highway
that was leading towards Baghdad

which was a long snaking column

of American armored vehicles,
hundreds of miles long.

I should have taken my time
with it, I should have
just stayed back

and slowly inched my way up,
but I was a little bit eager

and I'd driven up on day three
of the war

about halfway to Baghdad.

You know,
it was a very calm afternoon,

nothing was going on,
we were just following

a convoy of Marines
and there was
absolutely no fighting,

there was no resistance
whatsoever.

The only disappointment
was the Marine unit

that we'd ended up following
was being diverted,

so there was
another Marine convoy

maybe two or three
kilometers ahead

and we tried
to hook up with them

which meant traveling
those two or three kilometers
in no man's land,

so to speak, without
any convoy protection.

We are now gonna talk
to Chris Hondros,

the infamous photographer
with Getty Images.

So, Chris, tell us,
what are you thinking?

I'm thinking that I'm amazed
that they're letting us drive
this deep into Iraq.

On the right side,
I remember there was
a very large gas station

and I just remember hearing,
you know, gunfire,

and I looked over
and there was at least
10 to 15 Iraqi soldiers,

all in fatigues, shooting at us.

The tires on the right side
of the car
were completely blown out

and so we're traveling on rims.

And then we ditched the car,
grabbed what we could,

and we're so lost
on an Iraqi farm field
as night fell for an evening.

It was bad.

Chris was on the phone
with his Getty folks

back in New York who were being
advised by Marine commanders

to hunker down, dig a hole,

and wait until the morning.

I thought it was a really
bad idea because you're
basically a sitting duck.

It...
It was, uh...
It was hard to convince Chris.

He, he was dead set
on staying put.

He was in this tunnel thinking
that this is what
he's going to do.

That's how it's going
to resolve itself,

by staying in a hole and waiting
to be rescued in the morning.

I kept saying, well,
come morning,

everyone's going to be able
to see you,
including the Iraqis.

They're going to find you,

they're going to follow
the footprints in the sand.

I think that sort of convinced
him that that was
the wrong decision.

When I tell you "convincing",
I had to literally grab him
by his collar,

by his shirt, and shake him
and I was like slapping his face

because we felt like
you cannot stay in the desert.

You have to come with us,
we're taking you
whether you like it or not.

And so, we walked in
the complete darkness
for 10 kilometers.

Took us about six
or seven hours,

and made it
to an army staging area.

It also ended
my drive to Baghdad

because I lost the truck,
I lost a lot of equipment
and gear.

So, I stayed with those
soldiers who picked us up

for a few days
but basically then,

they had helicopters
that were going back
on refueling

and I got on one of those

with my tail between my legs.

We were stuck in the desert
for three days.

There was a raging sand storm.

You couldn't see anything
but you could see

Chris Hondros' titanium white,
iridescent turtleneck.

You know Egyptian cotton.

So typical Chris.

I pushed it too far.

I thought that we actually just
drove on protected light SUVs
across the border.

It's incomprehensible to me.

I mean I think Chris
and I were really stupid

to get ourselves
in that situation.

Photojournalists in order
to survive,

we need a level of arrogance
and I felt it,

I see it in my colleagues,
and I've seen it in Chris.

I have a very good sense
that he felt this way.

A very high, supreme
confidence in his ability

to survive everything.

A cockiness.

Who doesn't feel
that way sometimes.

You cover dozens of conflicts,
multiple times,

multiple things and nothing
happens to you

or when things do happen to you,

you're able to, like,
brush off your pants
and walk away.

Chris definitely
had a tolerance for risk

that I just don't have.

And I wasn't, I don't know,
I wasn't born with that.

He could be, I don't want to use
the word "cavalier,"

but he had
this incredible optimism.

He was done, he was gonna
go home for a while

and chill out and recover.

So I drove him from Baghdad
down to the southern border

and we see a sign for the town

where they were shot up
and I'll never forget it.

He looks at me, he's like,
"Let's just take a spin
through the market,

I bet you my SAT phone,
we can find
my cameras and SAT phone."

And I just immediately
gunned it just to, like, 120,

just pretend
I never even heard it,
Chris, didn't hear it.

I think we was a great coper,
if that's even a word.

Because he had such a rich life.

I didn't have to worry about him

because I knew
that he was always
engaging with people

in ways that let him process
what he saw.

Well, Chris is the type of guy
that you just
became friends with

really fast
and he's really open.

And he actually,
one of the things that

I didn't really understand
about Chris

until much later in our
friendship was that the scope
of friends that he had.

Whether they're
translators, drivers,
friends he met along the way,

doesn't matter who they were,

he actually put
an incredible amount of work

and energy into staying
connected to those people.

And he really had this
global presence about him.

Chris is one of these guys
that just could really

have the world open its doors
to him.

He had a just, always
had a smile on his face,

was very curious
about everything.

You know,
he would just win friends,
you know,

and if you're going to be
successful at this profession,

you have to have that ability.

Chris was always very
interested in relationships.

He would travel
around the globe watering,

but essentially
nurturing relationships.

He was just like that,
and you feel so often

that when you're in these
environments and you're,
you know, you're sharing,

I don't want
to say you're taking,
but you're sharing

these moments with people,
you get to go home to your life.

And you know you
leave these people behind

and their situations
that they can't leave.

He wanted
to somehow do something
about that for people

and give them an opportunity
that they would never
otherwise have.

Ladies and gentlemen,
very warm welcome to Monrovia.

Joseph, hey.

Good to meet you.

Nice to meet you.

-How are you?
-I'm fine.

Good, good.
Thank you for meeting with us.

-Go inside?
-Thank you, yeah.

Wow, are these all shrapnel
or bullets?

These are RPG and these ones
are bullets.

Wow.

I never sort of
connected with that fighter,

and as the picture got used
all over the world,

people asked me
if I knew his story
or how old he was,

whether he survived the war,
anything like that,
and I didn't know.

I didn't realize the impact
the picture was going to have.

But my colleague at Getty,
Spencer Platt,

ended up going to Liberia
a month or two later

and he told me
that he was driving around

in an area and saw that fighter
you know, running around,

so he was pretty sure
that he had survived.

I said, "Well, how do you know
it was him?"

He said, "Well, I recognized
him from the picture.

And also he had the printout
from the weekend pictures

on MSNBC taped to
his windshield of his truck,
you know.

He was extremely
proud of that picture
of him in the middle of battle.

So, a few years later,
when I went back to cover

the Liberian elections in 2005,

I thought that for sure
I should try to track him down.

Said, "Look...

How much education
had you had already
at that point?

You know there's a line
that says, you know,

"If you kill one man,
you kill all of humanity",

I'm paraphrasing.

If you save one man,
you save all of humanity.

I think that that's
the way Chris was.

He nurtured all of his
relationships that same way.

I will need you back.

There's so many people
here in the church
and everything.

"Aren't you worried?" I said.

"Even if I worry, you see,
there's nothing
going to change."

I cannot tell him, you stay home
because I'm worried, you see.

You cannot do that.

Wait!

Smoke it!
Down the street, hurry up!

Smoke it! Smoke it!

The only thing
that I always told him,

I said, "Please be careful."

A picture is not
worth your life.

He said, "Oh, Mom, don't worry,
I'm careful, I'm careful."

Most people went to Iraq
in 2003 and that was it,
the war was over.

Chris went back
every single year,

patrol after patrol
after patrol.

I mean, very few journalists
are in Iraq anymore.

And to me it's incomprehensible.

I understand that on some level,
it's extremely dangerous.

On the other hand, it is such
a critically important story.

It is the foreign story
of our time bar none.

He was dedicated
to telling that story.

And he would go
when it was 120 degrees,

he would go when nobody else
wanted to go anymore.

You know,
actually, psychologically,
he was figuring this story out

but it would start kind of
creeping over the wire,

he was getting
closer and closer.

And then just out of the blue,
took an image

or series of images that became
the defining pictures
of that event.

I wanted to go
to downtown Mosul,

I was really on him
about it and they said,

"Well, we're gonna send you
out to Tal Afar."

And I said,
"What the hell is Tal Afar?
I've never even heard of it."

And they said, "Well, we have
a really important mission

going on over there,
you're really going to like it."

Usually when they say that,
it's gonna be
some glacial boring thing.

So I get flown out to Tal Afar,
this dusty field base
in the middle of nowhere.

I was actually
walking up to the platoon leader

and the platoon leader said,
"Hey, this is our imbed today."

And I was like, "Great."

I always gave the journalists
a brief,

"OK, do me a favor,
do what I tell you to do."

"If you don't do
what I tell you to do,

I can't keep you alive."

Chris' response was,
he's like, "Well,

my first priority's
the pictures, man."

I was like, "OK,
you're gonna get my ass shot."

But I liked the guy.

I got with one unit
that seemed to be pretty good,

the Apache Company.

Anyway they were pretty
press-friendly, these guys,

and so we went
on a late afternoon patrol.

The streets were empty,

there was
a sort of curfew in effect,
it was a very tense town.

But a car appeared
in the distance

and started coming toward them.

And, you know, they,
soldiers in Iraq don't let cars
come towards them.

I mean,
they just don't let that happen

because of the fears
of bombs and things.

Chris and I were,
you know, standing there.

I saw Chris taking pictures
off to my right

and we heard the roar
of an engine,

like "What the hell
is going on?"

We knew something
was going to happen.

We just knew it.

We gave 'em warning shots,
two warning shots.

That's one more than usual

and they sped up.

So company commander says,
"Stop that car,
somebody stop that car."

So, it was open fire, you know.

And it was 20 guys

pulling the trigger
as fast as they could.

We're putting down 18,
20 rounds a piece

into this vehicle before it was
a, "Ceasefire, ceasefire."

That's a lot of ammo.

Sure enough,
I hear children's voices

as they stopped the car
and I knew it was a family.

Back door's open and kids
just tumble out of the car,

just one after one after one,
there were six in all.

And the parents
sitting in the front

were just riddled with bullets
and killed instantly.

I was like "Oh, my God.

What did we do, what did we do?"

I saw this one little girl
and she had
a lot of blood on her face.

She could have been my daughter.

The children in the back
were incredibly enough OK

except one of them was shot
to the abdomen.

Chris was there, he saw it.

He had the presence of mind
to take the photos

and to insist that those
images were released

even though the military
were not keen on that.

The Major wanted me
to hold onto the photos

for a few days, he said,
"Yeah, we appreciate

if you didn't send those out
for a few days

until we've done
our investigation."

And I said, "Well,
I have to talk to my boss

but I think, you know, we want
to work with you there, Major,

so I think we can probably
do something like that.

Let me check
but I think we'll be OK."

Again, I'm being very casual,
very cool.

And then I stepped
out of his office

and ran back to my trailer
and hooked up my SAT phone

and got all the pictures
and looked at them

and I said "Whoa",
I couldn't believe how much

information was there,
like the pictures did come out.

"I need to get these back
to New York

before something happens."

I mean they have the capability
to, like, jam all communications
from base

including my personal SAT phone,
you know.

And I said,
"OK, send, send, send 'em up,

send 'em up, send 'em up,
quickly, quickly, quickly."

So I sent 20 pictures,

and then, whew, got them out.

Close the SAT phone,
close the computer.

The impact of the Tal Afar
photos was immediate, you know.

There had been obviously reports
through the war

of things like that happening
but there had been

no visual proof if you will.

Those photographs brought
a problem that might

have been murky
into sharp relief.

They ran globally
for days on end.

And then afterward, you know,
Chris got kicked
out of the imbed.

I just did a book on
Iraq, Iraq was my war.

I mean, I spent years there
and really covered the war.

And I think the one photo
that reached the American public

out of that entire conflict
is Chris' photo from Tal Afar.

Something Chris said about
the Tal Afar photographs

was that this was something
that happened
all the time in Iraq,

he just happened to be there
when it happened.

And the Tal Afar images, again,

it's just this intersection
of lives that, you know,

when it was over,
everybody was changed.

I believe that it was
a very traumatic event for Chris

and I think that that's probably

what led him to follow up
and get involved

with a young boy who came
over here for treatment.

That boy who was shot,
he ended up being,

on the basis of these photos,
he ended up being flown
to Boston for treatments.

You know,
he did a lot of that stuff
on his own

to figure out a way
to get Rakan to the US

which is a very difficult thing
to do in the middle of a war.

An Iraqi national had come
to get help in this country
for their injuries.

When you have that connection,
you know,

you don't have that connection
with everybody

but Chris obviously had
that with these people

and he put them
on the world stage,

and I think he probably was
trying to protect them as well,

you know,
making sure that they're OK.

And a lot of us just
run through people's lives

and take pictures
and we sometimes
become famous

for that versus the subject
and I think he wanted
to make sure

that they were OK.

Chris, you are well known
for this remarkable series

of photographs in Tal Afar,

describe the little girl,

this most famous image
of the little girl
next to a soldier's boots.

Yeah.
Her name as it turns out is Samar, Samara Hassan

and she was five years old
at the time of the picture.

I think one of the reasons
the photo had
the sort of resonance

that it does is because
it has a sort of empty feeling.

The poor girl all alone
in the world now

just standing there in the dark,
you know.

Chris was reluctant
to talk about details

of his work when
he was covering conflicts.

He would much rather talk
about his music, for example,

or the latest novel
that he read.

Well, I'm sure a lot of people
would say this about Chris

but he was able
to go to the places

he had gone to and do
the work that he did

and still come back and have
somewhat of a sane existence.

He knew the cost of war
more than anybody but I never
saw him talk about it.

You know, if anything,
he made light of it.

Sometimes we'd discuss stuff
and he'd say, "Hey, you know,

that's just the way it is,"
and, boom, he was off
on another subject

and you think, "Oh,

we didn't have the conversation
I thought we were gonna have."

Chris and I would talk
for hours and never talk
about photography.

Chris talked about ideas.

In a way,
that's the power of who he was
and the power of his work.

Like, the camera
is just an extension
of his psyche and his intellect.

He really encouraged me
to be more introspective

but also be more aware
of the world around you.

There was an intensity there,
I mean,
you could see it in his work

but outwardly
he didn't take himself
too seriously.

He had a perfect mix
of intensity and levity

because there's a bigger mission
here and we'd have to
keep focused on that.

I have a career ahead of me,
I can't let this kill me,

I can't come out of this
so messed up

that I can't work
from this point on.

So, while it is jarring
to come back
and going back and forth,

I do my best, to to...

have a normal life here
and keep Iraq in Iraq.

I'm not going to let Iraq
get the best of me.

You know,
I'm not going to do it.

Hondros.

I've been at this a while,
and again, one of the reasons

I've lasted as long
as I have is to keep

some level
of distance and sanity
from the whole process.

So for my part,
what's fun in Iraq.

Well, you know, the journalists
all stay in this hotel

and we have parties, you know.

There is Joe Raedle.

The penthouse
in the Al Hamra hotel

was actually a really
nice place to come back to

when you'd been out
in the field.

Not a luxurious penthouse
but it was a nice penthouse.

Getty Images hard at work.

Everybody knew Chris Hondros.
He'd been there forever.

Um, they knew his work.

Wow. Chicken!

- Hondras.
-Hondros!

So we all hung out all the time.

Whether it be having
dinner together,

we'd have a weekly poker game
here and there,

and Chris was a presence
at all of those evenings.

Classic Chris told me,
"Oh, well, you should come by

the Getty apartment
later tonight."

It was like we were back
in New York or something.

That's pretty much
how Chris was.

Everywhere he went, you know,

he was always trying
to bring a sense
of normalcy I think.

Maestro, maestro.

Chris called me up and he said,
"Hey, you know,

I've got the concert master
of the Pittsburgh Symphony

to play Bach's "Chaconne"

which is the single most
important piece ever written
for a solo instrument

in the history of music...
supposedly."

And Chris presented
a slideshow of seven years
of his work in Iraq

timed perfectly to the movements
within the music.

You know, you can't
tell me Chris didn't have
nightmares about it.

I smell
what I smelled that night.

Blood, brains,
I mean you ever smelled?

You can't forget it.

Other people came back
and they were welcomed back

with, you know,
hugs and what not,
no, I mean, not me.

I couldn't relate.

All my friends went away.

So who else could I relate with?

So I was like, you know what,
let's contact Chris,
see how he's doing.

And, uh...

And he came down.

He came down
pretty lickety-split quick.

Um, well, you know Chris and I,
we're sort of,

we don't even really know
what we're going to do

out of this if anything,
so just kind of, like,

you know, we're just kind of
chit chatting about stuff.

I guess it's irrelevant
in that didn't you say

that one of your lieutenants
said, "Take that car out?"

Or in that Captain Seabolt
did say...

-The captain did.
-"Stop that car."

Do you think you
were the only one
shooting at the passenger?

I feel fairly
responsible for the majority
of the injuries.

I feel as though
I killed the pregnant woman.

I feel that.

I feel I injured Rakan Hassan.

I feel that
so that's what makes my...

You don't know for sure
though that

yours was the only bullet that
hit the wife in this case.

No.

You suspect that
but, I mean, a lot of people
were firing.

You don't know that for certain.

Every time I go and look
at Chris' photos,

I have to see those ones.

Even though I know
I'm gonna have nightmares.

I have nightmares every night.

It used to be so bad
I'd see Rakan
walking down the street.

Did you follow what
happened with him after that?

Yeah, he went to
Massachusetts I think it was,

and got surgery
and now he can walk.

Uh...

Does...

It does seem that...

he actually was killed
in some sort of
incident in Mosul actually.

- Who, what, Rakan was?
- -Mmm-hmm.

There was some sort of
insurgent attack on their house

and Rakan was killed
in that last summer.

I thought you might have heard
about that
'cause I was published as well.

No.

It was just, they weren't
targeted or anything strange
like that, were they?

They do seem
to have been targeted.

Really?

Yeah, it was, it was
a pretty good surprise.

I didn't know.

And it was because of what
we had done that he died.

So...

I wanted to apologize.

Um...

No matter how many times
you say you're sorry.

Sorry.

If assuming that we have
a chance to meet Samar

and her family,
would you like us
to pass that message along?

Absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely.

I never asked Chris if he...

you know,
regretted getting involved.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's, I mean,
that's a question for Chris.
Yeah.

We all make judgment calls.

We all feel compassion
in different ways.

And obviously sometimes
the consequences
are beyond our control.

And there was a lot
of discussion about

whether or not journalists
should do that.

Yeah, I think the only people
that might be questioning that

are the people
that haven't been there.

It's tough to walk away
from a little girl

that's sitting in the middle
of the blood of her relatives.

We're humans,
we're not machines.

So...

When you talk
about war being hell,
this is what you mean.

It's not just battlefield
type of stuff.

When any country says
it's going to go to war,

these are the kinds of things
that we can expect

because these are the things
that happen in war.

Hello, Samar.

Does she understand
that my friend was

the photographer
who took the picture of her?

You know I always think
it's a lot more difficult

for photographers
when we get into this business

of we don't want
to talk about objectivity,

then certainly balance.

You know, a reporter can go
into a situation and say,

"Well, I can always
get both sides."

With a photograph,
there really isn't

that kind of way
to balance the picture.

Do you think about that?

Sure.

Individual photos of course
are difficult to balance
in that same way.

On the other hand,
I think on the whole,

in terms of a body of work,
it's possible to achieve

that kind of balance,
that kind of fairness.

I think in my work,
in Iraq I've covered,

I've been embedded with
US soldiers, you know,
for months and months on end.

I've been with Iraqis
in their homes.

You know, I've tried to cover
every part of this story
that's possible to cover,

and I think if one looks
at my work as a whole,

you see that multifaceted
aspect of it.

How do you get
these amazing photographs

and go to
these incredible places

where you internalize profoundly
the human experience?

I would always get
a phone call from him

and the conversations
that we had very often

were Chris on a mountaintop

halfway across the world,
um, lonely.

You know, he was
a globe-trotting, gallivanting,

good looking,
extremely articulate
conflict photographer.

I suppose
many women imagined that

this kind of fit
their movie line,

but it's a tough life.

Is it hard to have relationships
in what you do?

It's obviously difficult,
I mean, we travel,
mostly because we travel a lot.

You know, when I go to Iraq,
I go for
about six weeks usually,

and I'm gone at least every...

two or three times a year
since the war began.

On the other hand,
I don't think it's impossible.

I mean there are a lot of people
with consuming jobs

and, you know, to me,
holding a relationship

is a personal decision
and it has a lot of factors

and this only just one
of them really.

I was always
kind of nagging him,

I said,
"Chris, you're getting older,
and believe me,

because I said when you are
by yourself, it stinks, OK?"

And he said, "Yes, Mom,
don't worry about it."

I don't think
that I had too many expectations

upon meeting him,
it was through a friend of mine.

He was a bit quiet
when I met him at first.

So we had a lot of lunch dates
and a lot of first dates
it seemed like.

And then all of sudden,
we just seemed to find our way.

When Chris met Christina,
his fiancée,

I think that
he found the opening
to the rest of his life

and it was a path that
he had been looking for

in some way to justify
changing the speed

or changing
the tempo of the things
that he did professionally.

We were very drawn to each other
because we wanted a family

and to live abroad

and to have
a very kind of curious
exciting life out in the world.

I think he had been
through 10 years

of just missing the gear
in a lot of ways.

He yearned for a deep connection
with somebody

and I think he really had
found it with Christina.

He was overjoyed that
he had come to that place.

I had a background
working with people

that had worked
in conflict regions,
so there was always

a sense of awareness of the risk

and what's involved
but I believe very strongly

in the work photojournalists do

and I was OK with him being away

and we always felt connected

in different ways,
so it didn't feel like
a sacrifice at all.

It was frustration
at Tunisia's youth unemployment
that started it all.

Today, thousands of people
took to the streets

demanding change in Algeria.

They brought
their grievances to the world's
attention this way.

Tensions now spiked in Syria.

I remember he had the TV on

and Egypt
had just started brewing
for a couple of days.

And he was kind of pacing
back and forth

saying, "I think I should go,
I'm gonna talk to my boss

and try to get there
'cause I think this
is gonna be big."

And sure enough,
two days later, he was there

and he was right, it was big.

Even while the government
was insisting

that journalists were welcome
to report freely in Egypt,

at the end of last week,
we have now learned that

from the International Committee
to Protect Journalists,

26 journalists
have been detained

since the end of last week,
since Friday.

Seventy-one since the protests
began and those

are the just the ones
they could count.

I interviewed Chris
for my book on Iraq

and he talked in particular
about the changing role
of the media

and he said,
"You know, 10, 15 years ago,

the Western press was something
that was courted
and needed and today

everybody has
their own propaganda wing.

They're putting out
their own message

and a Western journalist
who's there fact-checking
is just in the way."

The number one
fundamental change is

if you had a media credential
or it said media or press

on your vehicle
or on your flak jacket

or whatever, you were safe
unless there was an accident.

You were not going
to be targeted.

Now it's a completely
different story.

On the streets
of Benghazi, Libya,

a stronghold of forces
opposing Libyan forces

loyal to Muammar Gaddafi
are defending their leader.

The city of Benghazi,
now the heart of the uprising,

is cut off to foreign media.

Libya is like a black hole,
very hard to see inside.

We had crossed a border
into a country

that had been shut off
from the world for 42 years

and we were there illegally
according to this government.

This is not Cairo or Tunisia
where you're photographing

street demonstrations,
this is deadly mortar,

artillery, and war is no joke,
you know.

When I reached Libya,
I knew it was going to bad.

And it became bad very fast.

You never knew
where the bad guys
were gonna come from,

when, how quickly
things changed,

how fast a town
or a village or a city

could change hands
from being relatively safe

to completely in the control

of the other side
and that's what I experienced

when I was captured in Ajdabiya.

The New York Times says
that four of its journalists

covering the revolt in Libya
are missing.

One moment you're fine
and the next you aren't.

And myself and some others
from The New York Times

were beaten and put in various
jails across the Libyan desert.

I did know that Tyler
had been captured.

Didn't know what had happened
to them at that point.

We had heard there were
refugees outside town

where there had been a lot
of fighting taking place.

So, we were wanting
to do a story on them.

You know,
we were pretty cautious
about making sure

that the refugees story
we were gonna do

was something that we
could safely do.

You sure this is behind
the lines of the fighting?

There's no question that
we're gonna run into

the Gaddafi forces
and we're convinced that,

you know, that it was safe.

And...

we...

ended up running right
into the frontline

of the Muammar Gaddafi, um...

army.

Still photographer
Joe Raedle went

missing Saturday while
covering the conflict in Libya.

They were arrested at
gunpoint by Gaddafi forces.

They took us to a holding
area which I think was like
a 12-hour drive.

The first thing you saw was,
as we were let out of our trucks

was maybe 12 people standing
with sacks over their heads.

Um...

And then the Gaddafi people
all had surgical masks on.

So it was a pretty,
uh, disturbing sight.

They made us pick up our gear
and as we're going through

these piles of, uh, gear,

they had--
The New York Times gear
was in there, too.

I saw, I think Tyler's name
on his bag or New York Times

and, uh, so we knew that
they had been where we were,

we just didn't know
if they had made it out alive

or not at that point.

You were held
for a total of what?

Four days.

But, yeah, I'm good,
made it out.

Other people didn't.

My driver was killed
in the process

of when we were captured
and it's hard to process that.

Who's the one who has a bullet
just fly past him

and who's the one
who gets hit by it and why?

They didn't kill us

but, uh, they certainly
put me through
some psychological, uh...

somersaults.

You know,
ended with them telling me that,

punching me and telling me
that I was gonna...

go home in a box, so,
you know, that's something
that's hard to deal with.

We were able to get him
released after a horrible time

and Chris said,
"Well, he can't come out
and not have someone greet him.

He's gonna need a hug after this
and he's gonna need a hug

from one of his friends
and colleagues.

So I'm gonna go out there."

So he went.

You know, it's
like seeing your brother.

Things will be OK.

I think we try
not to think about it

but we all know that
that kind of thing can happen

and that the very fabric
of the profession

is about risk and danger,
so we try
not to talk about it too much

but I think when it happens,

when any kind of calamity
happens to a member

of the International Journalism
Photography Community,

everybody tries to step up
and help
and be there for them.

When did you learn that Chris
was gonna go into Libya?

I knew somebody was going in,
you know? So, uh...

I mean, he replaced me.

We had a long conversation
in my office

with the two of them,
with Chris and with Joe

just in the room next door
and it was like,

"Surely this is a warning."

And it was,
"No, this is the big story."

He called me
and he said, "Well, I decided
to go to Libya."

And in light of
the conversations
we had just been having,

I remember asking him, you know,

"Why are you going to Libya?
Come on." You know?

"You were just talking
about your wedding,

why do you need to be there?"

I remember saying to him,

"I am tired of seeing
AK-47s in the desert

and if I've become numb to it,

how many people
have just become numb to it?

And it doesn't even register
an emotional response anymore."

Couple weeks later
I see the front page

of The Washington Post
on my computer one morning.

And I typed on Facebook
a little note to him,

"Brother, that is the best
damn picture of an AK-47

in the desert I have ever seen."

This is Chris Hondros.
I'm in Libya at the moment.

You can leave a message here
or email me at hondros@aol.com.

I got a text from Chris
that said "Libya?"

That wasn't unusual
because he was always trying

to get me to come
to Baghdad or Afghanistan

or wherever the story was
happening so that we could

report together again.

I'd always said no.

And I had every excuse

that I'd ever used in the past
to use again,

and the idea of not going
never crossed my mind.

We were in rebel-held territory
in Benghazi

and, you know, it's pretty much
the wild west out there.

Our days were spent driving
from the relative safety
of our hotel

to the frontline
of the conflict.

And it was about
an hour and a half
or two-hour drive.

One of the great things
about Chris was his ability

to sort of letting your attitude
a little bit
and lighten the mood.

I remember one day
we were driving in the car

and we were heading
towards God knows what

up towards the frontline
where people were being killed
that day

and Chris asked
everybody in the car,

"How do you order flowers
for a wedding?"

It was a reminder that
there was this other life

waiting for him after
this assignment was over.

And it was also a way
for all of us

to get our minds off
of what was to come.

Allahu Akbar!

To say this front is fluid
is a serious understatement.

Here we are yet again
at the gates of Ajdabiya

which has now become
the frontal defensive position

of the rebels in eastern Libya.

These kids are just playing war.

Dangerous for them,
dangerous for us.

If you think about it,
this is just like,

if you really strip it down,

these are just bystanders,
teenagers,

they don't even have weapons,
they don't even pretend
they have weapons.

Essentially we're standing
out here, if you look at it,

clearly with three
or four armed trucks.

We're standing out here
with three or four trucks

that actually have ammunition,

so, versus the Libyan army
who is fully mortarized,

mechanized and armed
down the street
with who knows how much.

What I was hearing
was that it was sort
of amateur hour

over there and there were
all these young photographers

running around with cell phones
and such

and that really
concerned me greatly.

I knew Chris and Tim
were traveling together

which of course
made me feel much better

because one of the most
dangerous things you can do

is go into a combat situation
with people
who are inexperienced,

who don't have medical training,

who maybe are not
gonna hold it together.

Allahu Akbar!

There's all this young
generation of journalists
who were following him

and they were following him
in Cairo, you see the pictures
on Facebook,

he's surrounded
by all these people.

I don't know, it bothered me
that he wasn't working alone.

Too many people around you
is a distraction.

Photography is
a solitary profession,
it should be.

There's a reason for that.

And to be in tune and in touch
with your own feelings

and your surroundings
and what's going on.

-Allahu Akbar!
-Allahu Akbar!

Let's go, Chris.

Wait! Wait! Wait!

The more seasoned
veteran photographers,

they see a younger person
trying to get into this business

and they might be helpful
here and there,

but they won't actually try
to like take you
under their wing

or care about you
as much as Chris did.

He really wanted to, like,
make sure that the younger

photographers
or journalists were,

kind of, staying together
and being safe

and, you know,
they felt in a way
responsible for us

and that was something
I felt real gratitude for

and also I felt
like it was going to be OK.

We should probably head out.

Yeah, it sounded kinda hairy.

- What do you think?

No...

Chris was always
recalibrating where he stood,

walking around, you could
just see the wheels spinning,

he was constantly framing,

you could see his eyes moving
throughout the frame.

He didn't get rattled.

He was very aware of the things
that could go wrong.

He was constantly
performing mental calculus.

And I saw how he had evolved
and matured as a photographer,

really at the top of his game

those last couple days
when were together.

Yeah.

We have about 45 minutes
to make it safe.

OK.

See ya, see ya.

Ooh!

Outta here, no problem.

I last saw Chris
on Wednesday April 13th

in the lobby
of the hotel in Benghazi.

Chris' last words to me were,
"We got you
out of here unscathed."

Even the other day with...

I wish I would have
held on to him a little longer

when we hugged and said goodbye
for the last time.

In Benghazi,
there was a frontline.

It wasn't always clear
because these weren't
professional fighters,

they would fall asleep
on the frontline, they would
run away during battles.

Misrata was different.

Misrata was a siege

and we were going into
be able to cover
the humanitarian crisis going on

and arguably war crimes
that were happening.

So we got on a boat, a few
journalists including Chris
and Tim Hetherington.

It was a 17-hour journey.

We got to Misrata
and you're surrounded by water.

Regime forces on another side

and a battle zone
in the center of the city.

And there's nowhere to go
unless you get on a boat

and get out, and even that port
was under fire all the time.

It was kind of difficult
to find a place to stay there,

so the rebels had like a house
to host all the journalists.

There were a lot of us
basically sleeping

on mattresses in various spots
around the living room.

So on the morning of the 20th,
I remember Chris was there

on the couch
reading Pride and Prejudice

or something really bizarre
in this situation of conflict.

And, uh, I think I left first

and then it was Chris and Tim
and that whole group

that decided to go
to Tripoli Street.

One of the frontlines of Misrata

was on Tripoli Street.

And part of the road
was opened up,

so you could actually,
you could drive there

and you could
sort of walk around
and see the damage.

There was a large
crowd of people,

they were shooting
in the building.

Apparently,
a few snipers inside.

And we'd have guys in the field
with light artillery
firing into the building.

firing into the building.

It was like a very dangerous
place to be.

One of the guys who
was by my side
just got shot on the head.

Last one.

We're ready.

They tried to burn a tire
to make them come out.

They wouldn't come out.

This oil is old.

Someone, like,
lit a fire in the stairwell

and everybody started
running out of the building

because of the smoke.

Hetherington was upstairs...

stuck at some point

and so basically
had to climb out
of the building on the ladder.

The situation was very crazy
for a while

and then it calmed down a little
bit because I think
they killed these guys

so we decided to go back.

Guillermo, you all right, man?

We went back to the house
so we could file our work.

And at one point,
the possibility of coming
back up here,

I don't know from where,
and I said, "Yeah, why not?

Some of the others
were gonna go back
and, at first I was, like,

"No way, I'm not going back.
No way."

You know,
and Chris was not gonna go back.

I remember
it was kind of a division

between people,
of going back or not.

And I think Mike and Chris
were not really into going back.

There's been a lot of talk about
what decisions
went into that day.

I don't think we'll ever have
a 100% clear answer

about how things
really went down,
um, and why.

We don't have the luxury
of being able to ask him

why exactly he decided
to go back.

So when we arrived
in the afternoon,

there wasn't much happening,
it was strange.

You couldn't hear shooting,
you know.

But you could feel tension.

We began walking by the building

that we'd spent the morning in
and then

just maybe 100 feet
past the building,

a couple hundred feet,
that's when...

mortar came in.

Thirty minutes after the hour,

let's give you a check on
the morning's top stories.

The battle for Libya
has claimed the lives
of two Western photojournalists,

Chris Hondros
and Tim Hetherington.

They were covering the fighting
between rebels
and Gaddafi forces

on the frontlines in Misrata.

American photographer
Chris Hondros

of the Getty Photo Agency
died within a few hours

of receiving
a devastating brain injury.

British-born photographer
and Oscar-nominated director

Tim Hetherington died
earlier in the same incident

in the western Libyan city
of Misrata.

Shrapnel from the explosion

killed both
British born Hetherington
and American Hondros.

Two others were injured.

I have always...
I have always been very, very proud of him.

He had a dangerous job
but we talked about it
many times.

You see, that was his decision,
it was his job, he loved it.

I'm still a little bit mad
that he had to go,

but I always say he did more
living in 41 years

than some men
that are 100 years old.

You know I have been
a photographer
since I was 16 years old.

I have no idea what I would do
if I hadn't done this.

Even though as war photographers

you see so much devastation
and you see so much of humanity

at its worst, it's to me
balanced by the fact that

you also see humanity
often at its best.

I've seen such
examples of courage
and such examples

of human generosity in
my work as well and to me

that's been a balance
to all the horrible things
that I've seen.

In 2003, I was just
a photographer,
still photographer,

and I actually wanted to
become a photojournalist.

Chris Hondros came here
to tell our story

that brought that war to an end
so I learn a lot.

2005 he came back,
we worked together.

He give me this sight
and I'm there.

I'm now a staff photographer
for the European
Pressphoto Agency.

So I always imagining him
with the angles I take,

that's always
coming into my head.

I feel spiritually
that Chris is in me.

I'm overwhelmed with his spirit.