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The photojournalist Brian Harris, who passed away aged 73 of cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and went on to become among the most esteemed British documentary photographers of his era.

An International Career

He journeyed the world as a freelance or a staffer for Fleet Street publications, covering major happenings including the collapse of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkan region and across Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands war and several US election campaigns. He also created lyrical scenic views of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he took more than two million photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he stated that figure several years ago. He kept sharing archive and recent images each day on online platforms up to a short time before his death, and had been planning to give a talk on his career and experiences.

Memorable Assignments

Stories from a rollercoaster career featured an costly 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 treated with ice that had been employed to cool the body.

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

Career Milestones

He became the Times’ youngest ever staff photographer when he joined the paper in 1976, at the age of 26, and worked around the world for nearly a decade, 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 starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was put together to launch a new newspaper. He was instrumental in shaping the style of editorial photography that the paper was famous for, helping raise the bar for news photography and broadsheet design, in dramatic images filling multiple pages. Among many awards, he was named the What the Papers Say photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc documenting the fall of communism.

He operated independently after being let go in 1999, and significant projects after that included a year spent photographing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, which led to an exhibition launched in London – where he gave a personal tour to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Background and Start

Harris was born in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later helped his son construct a photo lab in the garage. In the 1950s, the family moved eastwards – and up in the world – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended a local secondary modern school, learning practical skills in woodwork and metal crafting, before departing at 16.

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

Colleagues and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often outpaced by him, recalled his work as remarkable. A colleague, who worked with him in the early days, described him as “a great and brave photographer”, an inspiration to a cohort of young colleagues. Tim Dawson, a freelance organiser, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris made contact through a website with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had initially encountered as a three-year-old in primary school, and they became inseparable partners through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they went on a driving tour in Europe, posting sunny images of good meals and quality drinks, and returning to important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, finished a short time before his demise, was to transfer his vast archive of five decades of work to a long-term repository. Among his favourite historical photos he commented on a very young Harris drinking large glasses of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a fortunate 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 later union, Nikki’s daughter, Holly, and by his sister, Jan.