Tim Hetherington was born in Liverpool, UK, in 1970. He studied literature at Oxford University and worked in publishing before returning to Cardiff University in 1997 to study photojournalism. He is based in New York and is a contributing photographer for Vanity Fair magazine.

His interest lies in creating diverse forms of visual communication from long-term projects and his work has ranged from digital projections at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London, to fly-poster exhibitions in Lagos, to handheld device downloads.

As a film maker, he has worked as a cameraman and director/producer. Recent work includes credits on Liberia: an Uncivil War (2004) and The Devil Came on Horseback (2007). 

The project Healing Sport was published in Tales of a Globalizing World by Thames and Hudson (2003) as part of group project, funded by the Swiss government. His book about Liberia, Long Story Bit By Bit, has just been published by Umbrage Editions in May 2009. 

He is the recipient of numerous awards including a Fellowship from the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (2000-4), a Hasselblad Foundation grant (2002), World Press Photo of the Year 2007 , the Rory Peck Award for Features (2008), and an Alfred I. duPont award (2009).