You Never See Them Like This, photographs by the late Tim Hetherington

Drawing from the series of images published in his acclaimed book Infidel, which offers an intimate insight into the lives of American soldiers in conflict but beyond the action of war, almost 30 of Hetherington’s genre-defying photographs will be on display.

The centrepiece of the show will be the three-channel video installation entitled, Sleeping Soldiers. The video, alongside the photographs, lingers on the apparent stillness and quietness that anticipates and follows combat. As a sense of waiting marks the passing of time, Hetherington asks what story is to be told, in journalistic terms, when there is no significant event to report on.

The exhibition’s title, You Never See Them Like This, is a quote by Tim Hetherington talking to his creative collaborator Sebastian Junger (a journalist and his co-director on the Oscar-winning documentary film, Restrepo), describing the revelation he had looking at the sleeping soldiers: “They always look so tough… but when they’re asleep they look like little boys. They look the way their mothers probably remember them.”

You Never See Them Like This launches on 6 September at Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool. To find out more, visit www.openeye.org.uk.