It is with great sadness that we report the news that Liverpool born British photojournalist Tim Hetherington has tragically been killed whilst covering the conflict in Libya.

Tim studied literature at Oxford University, later returning to college in order to study photojournalism. He was a fearless and admirable photojournalist, famous for his long-term documentary project work: Tim lived and worked in West Africa for eight years and reported on social and political issues worldwide.

Portrait of Tim, copyright Matt Stuart.

Tim was not only a photojournalist but also a film maker, his directorial début being Restrepo – a documentary following a platoon of soldiers in Afghanistan. It was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.

Unfathomably brave photojournalists like Tim ensure that the truth of faraway conflicts and incidents is told and not simply seen as a statistic or an abstracted headline. I won’t do Tim an injustice by attempting to analyse his work beyond this: his images are both incredible and incredibly important.

There are many, many quotes and statements to come out of this tragic incident but we’re going to go for a very simple one at Small Aperture. Tim was a regular contributor to Vanity Fair magazine and photo director Susan White said that she would always remember his ‘magnificent, warm smile’.

We must also take time to remember similarly incredible photojournalist Chris Hondros of Getty Images, who also died in the attack.