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The photojournalist Brian Harris, who has died at the age of 73 from cancer, left school at 16 to become a messenger boy, and eventually became one of the most respected UK documentary photographers of his era.

An International Professional Journey

He journeyed the world as a freelance or a employee for Fleet Street titles, covering major happenings including the fall of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkans and throughout Africa, the consequences of the Falklands war and four US election campaigns. Additionally, he produced lyrical landscapes of the countryside around his Essex home.

According to his estimates he shot over 2m photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He kept sharing archive and new images daily on social media until a short time before his death, and had been arranging to deliver a lecture on his life and work.

Notable Projects

Stories from a turbulent career included an costly premium flight in 1991 to attend the funeral in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from heatstroke and pneumonia and was treated with ice that had been employed to cool the body.

His 1983 images of the at that time Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, toppling into the tide on Brighton beach were published across multiple columns of a front page, and are often reprinted as a striking example of photo-opportunity 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.

Career Milestones

He became the a major newspaper’s most youthful staff photographer when he joined the paper in 1976, at the age of 26, and worked around the world for almost ten years, including reporting of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he considered editing of his most powerful images of starvation 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 editorial photography that the paper became known for, helping raise the bar for press images and newspaper design, in dramatic images filling front and back pages. Among many awards, he was named the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe recording the collapse of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being let go in 1999, and significant projects thereafter included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, which resulted in an exhibition launched in London – where he gave a private viewing to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Early Life and Beginnings

Harris was born in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later assisted him construct a photo lab in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family moved farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to Chase Cross secondary modern school, learning practical skills in woodwork and metal crafting, before leaving at 16.

At a central London photo agency, he quickly advanced from messenger boy to photographer, and launched his working life at eastern London local papers before progressing to major publications.

Peers and Impact

Fellow photographers, often scooped by him, remembered his work as remarkable. A colleague, who worked with him in the initial stages, called him “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’ last golden age”.

Personal Life

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 close companions through his remaining years. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, posting bright images of fine dining and good wine, and returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a few weeks before his death, was to donate his extensive collection of five decades of work to a permanent home. Among his favourite archive images 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 married twice, each union concluded with divorce.

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