Two renowned war photographers from Brooklyn died as they lived — using their lenses and limitless passion to shine light on the world’s darkest corners.
Tributes poured in for Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros a day after they were killed by mortars fired by Libyan strongman Moammar Khadafy’s forces.
Hetherington’s girlfriend, Idil Ibrahim, 31, yesterday was at his Williamsburg apartment, where she had the grim task of collecting his work for his family.
“He was the love of my life,” Ibrahim told The Post, choking back tears.
“It’s going to take me a lifetime to recover.”
At Hondros’ family home in North Carolina, his devastated mom, Inge, said his family had never thought of asking him to stop snapping away in the most dangerous parts of the world.
“I knew he loved what he did,” she said.
“The only thing I could say to him was ‘Be careful. It’s not worth taking a picture and losing a life.’ But that’s what happened.”
She ticked off the hellholes where her son had dodged danger.
“There were so many close calls — Iraq, Sierra Leone, Liberia.
“I can’t really say a particular incident,” she said. “The bullets were always flying.”
Hetherington, who held US and British citizenship, was driven to go where people cried out for help, a co-worker said.
“He definitely seemed compelled to go to these places and find the truth about what was going on,” said Susan White, director of photography at Vanity Fair.
Hetherington, 40, never rested on his laurels, even after his Oscar nomination for “Restrepo,” a documentary he directed about US soldiers in Afghanistan.
“He was so humble and modest despite all of his achievements,” Ibrahim said. “But I take comfort in knowing he was doing what he loved.”
Now loved ones are waiting for red tape to be cut so Hetherington and Hondros can come home.
Hondros, 41, caught the photography bug as a small child, his family said. But loved ones had no idea he’d get the itch to photograph war zones until he went to Kosovo in 1999 — and even then, he kept his travels secret.
“He didn’t want to tell us anything. It wasn’t until the second or third time there [in Kosovo] that we found out,” his mom said. “He didn’t want to upset us. He didn’t want us to worry.”
Hondros, who shot for Getty Images, winning several awards, documented human suffering because he couldn’t stand to see pain go unnoticed, a friend said.
“For Chris, it was all about capturing the emotion and bringing that to the surface,” said Tucker Reed. “Sometimes, we feel so detached from that [foreign tragedy], but Chris was a real intellectual. He thought deeply about all those things.”
Emma Daly, spokeswoman for Human Rights Watch, said Hetherington was so professional, not even gunfire could distract him.
Daly said she’ll never forget video of Hetherington in Afghanistan, showing him in the middle of a firefight, oblivious to shots whizzing by, inches away.
“Just filming ‘Restrepo’ was extremely dangerous,” she said.
“He didn’t even notice a trace of [gun] fire that was going between him and a soldier next to him because he was so wrapped up in the moment.”