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The photojournalist Brian Harris, who passed away at the age of 73 from cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and went on to become one of the most respected UK documentary photographers of his generation.

An International Professional Journey

He travelled across the globe as a independent or a staffer for major British titles, 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 consequences of the Falklands war and four US election campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic landscapes of the countryside around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he shot more than two million photographs, taking an average of 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He continued posting historical and new images daily on social media until a few weeks before his death, and had been arranging to give a talk on his life and work.

Notable Projects

Tales from a turbulent career included an costly premium 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’s images of the then Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, toppling into the sea on Brighton beach were published across eight columns of a front page, and are regularly reproduced 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 striking him with a folded briefing paper.

Professional Highlights

He became the a major newspaper’s youngest ever staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and was based around the world for nearly a decade, including reporting of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he considered editing of his most powerful images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was assembled to launch a major newspaper. He was instrumental in forming the style of journalistic photography that the paper was famous for, helping raise the bar for news photography and broadsheet design, in striking images covering multiple pages. Among numerous awards, he was named the What the Papers Say photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe recording the collapse of communism.

He operated independently after being made redundant in 1999, and significant projects thereafter included a year spent photographing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which led to an display launched in London – where he gave a private viewing to Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a emotional book, Remembered.

Background and Beginnings

Harris was born in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later assisted him build a darkroom in the garage. In the 1950s, the family relocated eastwards – and up in the world – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended a local secondary modern school, acquiring practical skills in woodwork and metal crafting, before departing at 16.

At a Fleet Street photo agency, he quickly advanced from delivery boy to photographer, and launched his working life at east London local papers before moving on to major publications.

Peers and Legacy

Other photographers, often outpaced by him, remembered his work as remarkable. A colleague, who worked with him in the initial stages, called him “a great and fearless photographer”, an influence to a cohort of junior colleagues. Tim Dawson, a freelance organiser, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris made contact through a online service with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had first met as a toddler in infant school, and they became close companions through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they went on a road trip in Europe, sharing sunny images of good meals and quality drinks, and returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, finished a few weeks before his demise, was to donate his vast archive of five decades of work to a permanent home. 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 married twice, each union ended in divorce.

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