Photographer describes wars in pictures

Chris Hondros has seen the world at war first hand – and so has his camera lens.

Working for… Chris Hondros has seen the world at war first hand – and so has his camera lens.

Working for Getty images as a war photographer for almost a decade, he has captured militiamen crying out in battle in the Second Liberian Civil War, American soldiers on raids in Iraq and children in the arms of their mothers in Sierra Leone’s refugee camps.

Hondros brought these images, his experiences and his personal comments to Pitt yesterday afternoon in a lecture facilitated by the global and film studies departments, PittArts and Pittsburgh Filmmakers. About 70 people crammed into room 501 in the Cathedral of Learning for a slideshow of Hondros’ work and to hear his commentary.

An interest in international affairs and an eye for photography led Hondros to pursue a career in war coverage. He earned a master’s degree in photojournalism from the School of Visual Communications at Ohio University.

In 2004, he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for photos he took of rebel-led battles in Liberia.

His work as a war photographer has taken him on 11 tours of Iraq, to Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, the Kashmir region of northern India, Angola, Nigeria, Pakistan and the West Bank of Israel.

Traveling with an interpreter for most of these trips, Hondros said he tries to capture war so American viewers can understand foreign cultures and conflicts.

“Visual history helps us connect with foreign places difficult to understand,” he said to the crowd, many of whom gasped when he presented some of the images depicting the wounded and their pain. “My job is to explain what war is and explaining the situation so we can make informed decisions about war in the future.”

Despite the violence and pain depicted in some of his shots, Hondros’ photos also have a prominent sense of vibrant colors, beautiful landscapes and everyday people doing everyday things like farming or walking down the street – although those people happen to be living in war-torn areas like the West Bank and Afghanistan.

“I want to capture the beauty of the scene, even if the subject is horrible in nature,” he said.

Spending a great deal of his time in Iraq embedded as a journalist with U.S. troops, he said the military has been fairly tolerant and accepting of his work.

Hondros once shot photographs of Iraqi children orphaned in an accidental civilian shooting by American patrollers.

“I have pictures of U.S. soldiers doing bad things in Iraq, and I have pictures of U.S. soldiers doing good things in Iraq,” he said, responding to questions from the audience about his personal biases and political feelings on the war. “[My photos are] what I see when I happen to be doing my work.”

Hondros isn’t in the heat of battle that often. Much of his time photographing war, he said, is spent traveling and waiting because battles occur sporadically.

About once a year on the job, he said, he might feel in danger, like when he covered the initial ambush of Iraq and drove into the scene in a private vehicle.

“You’re quite vulnerable, but part of your experience is learning how to keep yourself safe in those circumstances,” he said.

In addition to lecturing on his photographs taken at the height of foreign conflicts, he also displayed images from the morning after 9/11 and after Hurricane Katrina. He still calls these situations war zones, though, citing their social chaos and lack of authority.

After seeing so many jarring situations with his own eyes, Hondros said he’s “weirdly tolerant of war” now and still is able to separate his feelings and actions during when he is on the job from his life at home.

“How I feel about my work here is different than what I feel when I’m there, where I care about what I’m doing and still approach it in a professional manner,” he said.

As for knowing when to take the picture and when to drop the camera on the job, he added, “You’re not in the position to judge morality and ethics at that moment [in war]. You make the decision later.”

And after the decision is made and the photo printed, Hondros made the decision to share his work with a rapt audience at Pitt.