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The photojournalist Brian Harris, who passed away aged 73 of cancer, left school at 16 to become a messenger boy, and went on to become one of the most respected British documentary photographers of his era.

A Global Career

He travelled across the globe as a freelance or a staffer for Fleet Street titles, covering such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkans and across Africa, the consequences of the Falklands conflict and several US election campaigns. Additionally, he produced lyrical landscapes of the rural areas around his Essex home.

By his own calculation he shot over 2m images, taking an average of 100 a day, but he stated that figure some years back. He kept sharing archive and recent images each day on online platforms up to a few weeks before his passing, and had been planning to deliver a lecture on his career and experiences.

Memorable Assignments

Stories from a turbulent career included an expenses-shredding business class flight in 1991 to attend the burial in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed from heatstroke and pneumonia and was cooled down with ice that had been used to preserve the body.

His 1983 images of the then Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, toppling into the sea on Brighton beach were carried across eight columns of a leading page, and are regularly reproduced as a hideous example of staged photo hubris. His 2016’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, took the title from an exasperated John Major hitting him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Professional Highlights

He was appointed as the Times’ most youthful staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and was based around the world for almost ten years, including coverage of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he saw as editing of his strongest images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was put together to create a major newspaper. He played a key role in forming the style of editorial photography that the paper was famous for, helping set new standards for press images and broadsheet design, in striking images covering front and back pages. Among numerous awards, he was honoured as the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe documenting the collapse of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being let go in 1999, and major projects thereafter included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which led to an exhibition launched in London – where he gave a private viewing to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a emotional book, Remembered.

Early Life and Beginnings

Harris was born in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later helped his son construct a photo lab in the garage. In the 1950s, the family moved farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended Chase Cross secondary modern school, acquiring useful skills in carpentry and metalwork, before departing at 16.

At a Fleet Street agency, he quickly advanced from messenger boy to photographer, and began his professional career at east London local papers before moving on to major publications.

Peers and Legacy

Other photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as astonishing. A colleague, who collaborated with him in the early days, described him as “a great and fearless photographer”, an influence to a generation of young colleagues. Tim Dawson, a freelance organiser, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had initially encountered as a toddler in infant school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they embarked on a road trip in Europe, posting sunny images of fine dining and good wine, and revisiting important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, finished a short time before his death, was to transfer his extensive collection of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his preferred archive images he commented on a very young Harris drinking large glasses of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a blessed life I’ve had – no regrets and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was wed twice, both marriages concluded with divorce.

He is survived by Nikki, his son Jacob, from his second marriage, Nikki’s daughter, Holly, and by his sister, Jan.