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The photographer B. Harris, who has died aged 73 from cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to work as a courier, and eventually became among the most esteemed UK photojournalists of his era.

A Global Professional Journey

He travelled the world as a independent or a employee 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, war zones in the Balkan region and throughout Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands conflict and several US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced lyrical scenic views of the countryside around his Essex home.

According to his estimates he shot more than 2m photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He continued posting archive and new images daily on online platforms up to a short time before his death, and had been planning to give a talk on his life and work.

Notable Projects

Tales from a rollercoaster career featured an expenses-shredding premium flight in 1991 to reach the burial in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from sunstroke and pneumonia and was cooled down 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, was named after an irritated John Major hitting him with a folded briefing paper.

Professional Milestones

He was appointed as the a major newspaper’s youngest ever 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 civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he saw as censorship of his strongest images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was put together to create a new newspaper. He was instrumental in forming the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping set new standards for press images and newspaper design, in dramatic images filling front and back pages. Among numerous awards, he was honoured as the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc recording the fall of communism.

He operated independently after being let go in 1999, and significant projects thereafter 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 private viewing to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Early Life and Start

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

At a Fleet Street agency, he rose rapidly from messenger boy to photographer, and began his working life at eastern London local papers before moving on to major publications.

Peers and Impact

Fellow photographers, often scooped by him, remembered his work as astonishing. A colleague, who collaborated with him in the early days, described him as “a great and brave photographer”, an inspiration to a generation of junior 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 online service with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had initially encountered as a toddler in infant school, and they became close companions through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, posting bright images of good meals and good wine, and returning to important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, finished a short time before his death, was to donate his extensive collection of five decades of work to a long-term repository. Among his preferred archive images he commented on a very young Harris consuming generous servings 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, both marriages concluded with divorce.

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