21 September 2013 There are no heroes in Tim’s work. Neither are there any villains. Tim brought a rare and precious quality to his exploration of the world, a quality that is recognized in this extraordinary award: Tim had limitless curiosity but it was curiosity untainted by judgment. Tim made no separation between his experience and the experience of the people he photographed: he would look for the shared qualities and this was his way to understand the world. If he could understand who people are and why they behave as they do, he would understand himself better. This curiosity without judgment is one of his key qualities and it shines in all his work. Never content with limitations, Tim went further to share everything he learned in equal depth with his audience. Tim’s mission was to help people understand more about the world we all share. To this end he would look long and hard at himself, at his subjects and at his audience in his effort to connect the links. Speaking about his work he said, “I want to record world events, big History told in the form of a small history, the personal perspective that gives my life meaning and significance. My work is all about building bridges between myself and the audience.” All this found a voice in his work with the US army in Korengal. Together with Sebastian, Tim dug himself into the work of the soldiers, their lives and he touched on the very essence of being a soldier in conflict. It didn’t happen quickly. It took a while. He knew what he was looking for and he stuck with it through some desperately tough times until he found his thread. His first work produced an action story of kinetic warfare for Vanity Fair, which also won the Premier award at World Press Photo. But this wasn’t his purpose. He kept looking and looking, moving on to explore the social and human aspects of life in Outpost Restrepo. And still he kept looking until he produced the most intimate reportage of conflict, in the photo series “Sleeping Soldiers” which invited the viewers to see soldiers in a way that they’ve never been seen before: unarmed, in bed and fast asleep. Fighters, strong yet vulnerable, in the harshest environment yet dreaming. Tim talked about how common it is to see journalism that represents the hardware of war: the uniforms, the weapons, the machines and the action. But his mission, he said, was to talk about the software of war: the men who fight. “The truth is that the war machine is the software as much as the hardware. The software runs it and the software is young men. And in some ways I’m part of the software. I was a young man once. I’m not so young any more but I get it, I get the operating system. I am the operating system.“ The richness of the work he produced in Korengal is revealed in the many different outputs that Tim made for the work: it was published in magazines, then co-directed with Sebastian followed the extraordinary movie Restrepo, also a book called “Infidel” (the title was inspired by the Taliban epithet that several men had tattooed across their chests), the now-famous multimedia installation of Sleeping Soldiers that blended the images of soldiers asleep with the hard realities of their lives in conflict. Not only all that but he also created an art exhibition that showed in galleries around the world, he was active online in social media and on the Restrepo website, and of course his voice was heard in the endless media events and discussions that the work provoked. All of this was achieved with deep modesty. He was embarrassed by the ambition that he thought might be mistaken for ego, but which actually was just an energy to communicate. Speaking shortly before his death he said, “People want you to play the role. There’s very little room for nuance and it’s easy just to agree and to accept the stereotype. I find myself defined as a war photographer but I’m not a generic war photographer. I find myself pushed into the role of being this heroic figure.” And we must be thankful that he allowed himself to make the work and to use it as effectively as he did. -Judith Hetherington