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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 eventually became among the most esteemed UK photojournalists of his generation.

An International Professional Journey

He travelled the world as a independent or a employee for major British titles, covering such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkans and across Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands war and several US election campaigns. He also created poetic scenic views of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

By his own calculation he took more than two million images, taking an average of 100 a day, but he stated that figure several years ago. He kept sharing historical and new images each day on social media up to a short time before his passing, and had been planning to give a talk on his life and work.

Memorable Assignments

Stories from a turbulent career included an costly business class flight in 1991 to reach the funeral in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from heatstroke and pneumonia and was cooled down with ice that had been used to preserve the body.

His 1983’s images of the then Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, toppling into the sea on Brighton beach were carried 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, was named after an irritated John Major striking him with a folded briefing paper.

Professional Milestones

He became the Times’ most youthful staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and was based around the world for almost ten years, including coverage of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he saw as editing of his strongest images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was put together to launch a major newspaper. He was instrumental in forming the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping raise the bar for press images and newspaper design, in dramatic images covering multiple pages. Among numerous awards, he was honoured as the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe recording the fall of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being let go in 1999, and major projects thereafter included a year spent photographing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, which resulted in an exhibition launched in London – where he gave a personal tour to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Early Life and Start

Harris was raised in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later assisted him build a photo lab in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family relocated farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to Chase Cross secondary modern school, acquiring practical skills in carpentry and metalwork, before leaving at 16.

At a Fleet Street agency, he quickly advanced from delivery boy to photographer, and launched his professional career at eastern London local papers before moving on to national publications.

Peers and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often scooped by him, remembered his work as remarkable. A colleague, who worked with him in the early days, described him as “a great and fearless photographer”, an influence to a cohort of junior colleagues. Another associate, a freelance organiser, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki, whom he had initially encountered as a three-year-old in infant school, and they became close companions through his final decades. After learning of his illness, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, posting sunny images of fine dining and good wine, and returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, finished a few weeks before his death, was to transfer his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a permanent home. Among his preferred archive images he reflected on a very young 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, both marriages concluded with divorce.

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