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The photojournalist B. Harris, who passed away aged 73 of 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 journeyed the world as a independent or a employee for Fleet Street publications, documenting such events as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkans and throughout Africa, the consequences of the Falklands conflict and several US election campaigns. He also created lyrical landscapes of the countryside around his Essex home.

According to his estimates he shot over 2m photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he stated that figure several years ago. He continued posting historical and recent images daily on social media until a few weeks before his passing, and had been planning to deliver a lecture on his life and work.

Memorable Assignments

Stories from a rollercoaster career included an costly business class flight in 1991 to attend the funeral in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed from heatstroke and pneumonia and was treated with ice that had been employed to cool the body.

His 1983’s images of the then Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, toppling into the tide on Brighton beach were carried across multiple columns of a leading page, and are often reprinted as a striking example of staged photo hubris. His 2016 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 became the Times’ 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 saw as censorship of his strongest images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was put together to launch a major newspaper. He was instrumental in shaping the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping raise the bar for news photography and broadsheet design, in dramatic images filling front and back pages. Among numerous awards, he was named the What the Papers Say photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe documenting the collapse of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being made redundant in 1999, and significant projects after that included a year spent photographing 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 emotional book, Remembered.

Background and Beginnings

Harris was born in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later helped his son build a darkroom in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family relocated farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended a local secondary modern school, learning useful skills in carpentry and metal crafting, before departing at 16.

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

Peers and Impact

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

Private World

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a online service with Nikki, whom he had initially encountered as a toddler in primary school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they embarked on a road trip in Europe, sharing 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 demise, was to donate his extensive collection of 55 years’ work to a permanent home. Among his preferred historical photos he reflected on a youthful Harris consuming generous servings 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.