I think those things, it’s about respect and trust — letting people have their own moments, deciding maybe that moment is just for them to have, and that I shouldn’t take that from them. At the same time, obviously there are some very personal images in that project, and there had to be to do it right — it had to be personal. But you can’t be shooting frame after frame all day long, because it’s just too much on them, it’s too much burden on them.

EBC: It seems like you and your paper made an extraordinary connection with the subjects of this story — but as you also said, “The hardest thing was to get close, but not too close.” On such a consuming story, how did you try to maintain some distance?

TH: [I]t wasn’t so much about maintaining distance, just because of the nature of the relationship there already was enough distance. I think part of that is giving people enough space, trying to decide when the time was to leave … when to not photograph people, when to [try] to use your gut to say they need a break, maybe we need to just go back to the hotel and let ‘em be. But at the same time, you had to spend a lot of time, you had to listen to people … because you have to care. And there were a lot of times, say with Katherine, seeing her going through so much, you just want to reach out and hug somebody, to comfort ‘em. And we did — I didn’t want to be a robot — but there were times when you have to step back.

EBC: The Pulitzer board called your work “haunting.” And among the powerful photographs that ran with “Final Salute” were shots of Katherine collapsing into Steve Beck’s arms, Katherine draping herself over her husband’s casket, and Jim Cathey’s father’s face wet with tears as he hugged a Marine. What images linger in your mind from working on this project?

TH: Well, like I said before, the image of Katherine sleeping by Jim’s casket, that’s the one that stays with me the most. Just because I think about my own wife and having to leave her behind to do an assignment over in Iraq, and to know how that feels, and to see the outcome of that — of somebody who didn’t make it home — it really stuck in my mind.

Also, that moment for me … [came] after about nine months of working on this story and four days of following [the Catheys] — that’s after I made the airplane photo and those really intense scenes on the tarmac where Katherine drapes over the casket — so after that moment, [I] just [kept] thinking about all that we had seen and been through on this journey, really an intense journey.

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