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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 eventually became among the most esteemed British photojournalists of his era.

A Global Career

He journeyed the world as a independent or a employee for Fleet Street publications, documenting major happenings including the fall of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkans and across Africa, the consequences of the Falklands war and several US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced lyrical scenic views of the countryside around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he shot more than 2m photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he stated that figure some years back. He continued posting historical 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 life and work.

Memorable Assignments

Stories from a rollercoaster career featured an costly premium flight in 1991 to attend 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, toppling into the tide on Brighton beach were carried across eight 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 irritated John Major striking him with a folded briefing paper.

Career Highlights

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 coverage of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he saw as editing of his strongest images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was put together to create 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 newspaper design, in dramatic images covering multiple pages. Among numerous awards, he was named the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe recording the collapse of communism.

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

Background and Beginnings

Harris was raised in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later helped his son build a darkroom in the garage. In the 1950s, the family relocated eastwards – and to a better area – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended a local secondary modern school, learning useful skills in woodwork and metal crafting, before leaving at 16.

At a central London photo agency, he rose rapidly from delivery boy to photographer, and began his professional career at eastern London local papers before moving on to major publications.

Peers and Legacy

Other photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as remarkable. A colleague, who collaborated with him in the early days, described him as “a superb and fearless photographer”, an inspiration to a generation of young colleagues. Another associate, a freelance organiser, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had initially encountered as a three-year-old in primary school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After learning of his illness, they went on a road trip in Europe, sharing bright images of good meals and good wine, and returning to important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, finished a short time before his demise, was to donate his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his favourite archive images he commented on a youthful Harris drinking large glasses of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a blessed life I’ve had – no regrets and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was wed twice, both marriages ended in divorce.

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