Photos: Testament by Chris Hondros

When photojournalist Chris Hondros was killed in Libya three years ago, he left behind not only “hundreds of thousands” of images by his own count, but his words too. Dispatches from Liberia, Iraq, Afghanistan and many of the other trouble spots where he’d made his career and spent much of his life, were collected into a manuscript his fiancée Christina Piaia knew he wanted to turn into a book one day.

“It looked like a book and it had his editing notes and all sorts of different things on it,” she said. Fastidious as he was, Hondros had footnotes and comments on structure and even the font he wanted used.

Now, as the anniversary of his death approaches, Testament, a book of his images taken over ten years of covering conflict, and accompanied by his own writing, is being released. Published by Powerhouse Books and Getty Images, the proceeds Getty receives from the sale of the book will be donated to The Chris Hondros Fund. Hondros was killed in a mortar attack while on assignment in Misrata, Libya on April 20, 2011. The same incident claimed the life of fellow photojournalist Tim Hetherington, and wounded several other photographers.

For Bernasconi, going through Hondros’ vast collection of work led to new discoveries of old images. One photo, taken in Kut, Iraq, of an American soldier removing a portrait of Saddam Hussein from a classroom, struck him differently this time, than when he first saw it in 2003.

“I’ve looked at that picture forever, and I didn’t notice the pre-school alphabet on the side. I didn’t notice until I saw it in print,” Bernasconi said. “It’s such a gift to be able to have a conversation with a photographer through his work, and even though he’s no longer here, the book and the process of putting it together was like having a conversation with Chris.”

As one of his editors, Bernasconi says he witnessed Hondros’ evolution as a photographer and a documentarian through the years, which made creating the book a bittersweet process. “To know that he was in his prime photographically, professionally and personally, he was just getting to the apex of his life, he was becoming exactly who he wanted to be,” Bernasconi said.

Piaia, Bernasconi and Ciric first approached the idea of making a book six months after Hondros was killed. At the time, emotions were too raw to deal with his death. Even now, Bernasconi says, “it’s just like it was yesterday.”

“It was always clear to us that the book had to be a combination of his photos and his words; to do otherwise would not be a complete picture of him,” Bernasconi said. Reading through his words, he says, is “to hear his voice again.”

“Probably this quest is hopeless: finding the right music for Iraq, as the war is still raging and the outcome unknown,” Hondros continued in his June, 2005 dispatch. Then later, on a U.S. military embed, he wrote, he lay awake under the stars in an “utterly remote desert of Anbar province,” staring up at the sky.

“The moon had set and it was ethereally dark and quiet, and I listened to Beethoven’s cavatina as I stared up into a black sea sprinkled liberally with the lights of the cosmos. And I felt, for just a moment, that I almost understood why I was there and what it all meant.”

Testament was published by powerHouse Books in April 2014.