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The photographer Brian Harris, who passed away aged 73 from cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and eventually became among the most esteemed UK documentary photographers of his era.

A Global Professional Journey

He journeyed across the globe as a freelance or a employee for major British titles, documenting such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkans and across Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands war and several US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced lyrical landscapes of the countryside around his Essex home.

According to his estimates he shot more than 2m photographs, taking an average of 100 a day, but he stated that figure some years back. He continued posting historical and recent images daily on online platforms until a short time before his passing, and had been arranging to deliver a lecture on his career and experiences.

Notable Projects

Tales from a rollercoaster career included an expenses-shredding premium flight in 1991 to attend the burial in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed from sunstroke and pneumonia and was treated 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 front page, and are often reprinted as a striking example of staged photo hubris. His 2016 memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, took the title from an exasperated John Major hitting him with a folded briefing paper.

Career Milestones

He was appointed as the Times’ most youthful staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and worked around the world for nearly a decade, including coverage of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he considered censorship of his most powerful images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was put together to create a major newspaper. He was instrumental in shaping the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known 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 What the Papers Say photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe recording the collapse of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being made redundant in 1999, and major projects thereafter included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which resulted in an display launched in London – where he gave a personal tour to Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Early Life and Beginnings

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

At a central London agency, he rose rapidly from delivery boy to photographer, and began his professional career at east London local papers before progressing to major publications.

Colleagues and Impact

Other photographers, often outpaced by him, remembered his work as astonishing. A colleague, who worked with him in the early days, described him as “a great and fearless photographer”, an influence to a cohort of junior colleagues. Another associate, a union representative, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had first met as a toddler in primary school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, sharing sunny images of fine dining and good wine, and revisiting important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, finished a few weeks before his demise, was to donate his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his favourite historical photos he reflected on a very young Harris consuming large glasses of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a fortunate life I’ve had – no remorse and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was wed twice, each union concluded with divorce.

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