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The photographer Brian Harris, who passed away aged 73 of cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and went on to become one of the most respected UK photojournalists of his generation.

A Global Career

He travelled the world as a independent or a staffer for major British publications, documenting such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkan region and across Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands war and four US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced lyrical landscapes of the countryside around his Essex home.

By his own calculation he shot more than two million images, taking an average of 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He continued posting archive and recent images each day on online platforms up to a few weeks before his passing, and had been arranging to deliver a lecture on his career and experiences.

Notable Assignments

Stories from a rollercoaster career included an expenses-shredding premium flight in 1991 to attend the funeral in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed from sunstroke and pneumonia and was cooled down with ice that had been employed to cool the body.

His 1983’s 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 leading page, and are often reprinted as a hideous 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 rolled-up briefing paper.

Career Milestones

He became 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 almost ten years, including reporting of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he considered censorship of his strongest images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was assembled to launch a major newspaper. He was instrumental in shaping the style of editorial photography that the paper became known for, helping set new standards for news photography and broadsheet design, in striking images filling front and back pages. Among numerous awards, he was named the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe documenting 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 resulted in an exhibition launched in London – where he gave a personal tour to Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Background and Beginnings

Harris was born in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later helped his son build a photo lab in the garage. In the 1950s, the family moved eastwards – and to a better area – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended a local secondary modern school, learning practical skills in carpentry and metalwork, before departing at 16.

At a Fleet Street agency, he quickly advanced from messenger 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 astonishing. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the early days, called him “a superb and brave photographer”, an influence to a generation 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 made contact through a online service with Nikki, whom he had initially encountered as a three-year-old in primary school, and they became close companions through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they embarked on a road trip in Europe, posting bright images of fine dining and good wine, and returning to important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, completed a few weeks before his death, was to donate his vast archive of five decades of work to a long-term repository. Among his preferred historical photos he commented on a youthful Harris consuming 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, each union ended in divorce.

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