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The photographer Brian Harris, who passed away at the age of 73 of cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and went on to become among the most esteemed UK documentary photographers of his generation.

A Global Career

He travelled across the globe as a independent or a staffer for Fleet Street titles, covering such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkan region and throughout Africa, the consequences of the Falklands conflict and several US presidential campaigns. He also created lyrical landscapes of the countryside around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he took more than 2m images, taking an average of 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He kept sharing archive and new images daily on online platforms up to a few weeks before his death, and had been planning to deliver a lecture on his life and work.

Memorable Projects

Tales from a rollercoaster career included an costly business class flight in 1991 to reach the funeral in India of the slain politician 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, falling into the sea on Brighton beach were carried across eight columns of a leading page, and are often reprinted 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 rolled-up briefing paper.

Career Milestones

He became the a major newspaper’s youngest ever 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 strongest images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was assembled to create a new newspaper. He played a key role in shaping the style of journalistic photography that the paper was famous for, helping set new standards for news photography and newspaper design, in striking images filling multiple pages. Among many awards, he was named the What the Papers Say photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe recording the collapse of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being made redundant in 1999, and major projects after that included a year spent photographing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, which led to an display 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 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 relocated eastwards – and up in the world – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended Chase Cross secondary modern school, learning practical skills in woodwork and metal crafting, before departing at 16.

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

Colleagues and Impact

Fellow photographers, often scooped by him, remembered his work as remarkable. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the early days, called him “a great and brave photographer”, an influence to a generation of junior colleagues. Another associate, a freelance organiser, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris made contact through a website with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had first met as a three-year-old in primary school, and they became inseparable partners through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they embarked on a road trip in Europe, posting sunny images of good meals and good wine, and returning to important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a short time before his death, was to donate his extensive collection of five decades of work to a permanent home. Among his preferred historical photos he commented on a youthful 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, both marriages concluded with divorce.

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