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

A Global Career

He travelled across the globe as a independent or a staffer for Fleet Street publications, documenting major happenings including the collapse of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkan region and throughout Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands war and four US election campaigns. He also created poetic landscapes of the countryside around his Essex home.

By his own calculation he took more than 2m photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He kept sharing historical and recent images daily on online platforms until a short time before his death, and had been planning to give a talk on his career and experiences.

Notable Assignments

Tales from a turbulent career included an costly premium flight in 1991 to reach the funeral in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from sunstroke and pneumonia and was treated 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, falling into the tide on Brighton beach were published across multiple columns of a front page, and are regularly reproduced as a hideous 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.

Professional Milestones

He became the Times’ most youthful staff photographer when he joined the paper in 1976, at the age of 26, and worked 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 was made head photographer as the team was put together to launch a new newspaper. He played a key role in forming the style of editorial photography that the paper was famous for, helping raise the bar for press images and broadsheet design, in striking images filling multiple pages. Among many awards, he was named the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc recording the collapse of communism.

He operated independently after being made redundant in 1999, and major projects after that 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 private viewing to Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Background and Start

Harris was raised in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later assisted him build a photo lab in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family moved eastwards – and up in the world – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended Chase Cross secondary modern school, learning useful skills in carpentry and metalwork, before leaving at 16.

At a central London photo agency, he rose rapidly from messenger boy to photographer, and launched his working life at east London local papers before moving on to major publications.

Colleagues and Impact

Other photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as astonishing. A colleague, who collaborated with him in the initial stages, called him “a great and fearless photographer”, an influence to a generation of young colleagues. Another associate, a union representative, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris made contact through a online service with Nikki, whom he had initially encountered as a toddler in infant school, and they became close companions through his final decades. After learning of his illness, they went on a driving tour in Europe, posting bright images of fine dining and good wine, and revisiting important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a short time before his death, was to donate his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his favourite historical photos he commented on a very young Harris drinking generous servings of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a blessed life I’ve had – no remorse and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was married 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.