Over There

“He Just Had an Intense Curiosity About People​”

The singular work of late photojournalist Chris​ Hondros. 

Slate has partnered with Brooklyn Brewery and RISC to bring its hit war correspondent interview series to our readers. In this third installment, Steve Hindy, founder of Brooklyn Brewery and a former Associated Press foreign correspondent, sits down with three of the people closest to Chris Hondros, the Pulitzer Prize–nominated photojournalist who was killed in Misrata, Libya in 2011. Testament, a collection of Hondros’ photography and writing, was released posthumously this year.

Chris​ Hondros was the thinking man’s war correspondent, working in conflict zones not to satisfy the current news cycle but because there were human stories there he wanted to tell. As Sandy Ciric, director of photography at Getty Images, put it, “It wasn’t for a notch in the belt, it wasn’t for the adrenaline—he just had an intense curiosity about people.” In the clip above, Ciric joins Christina Piaia (Hondros’ fiancée and president of the Chris Hondros Fund) and Todd Heisler (a staff photographer at the New York Times) to discuss Hondros’ noble view of his profession, as well as how he managed to stay grounded in the field.