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The photographer Brian Harris, who passed away at the age of 73 of cancer, left school at 16 to become a messenger boy, and went on to become one of the most respected UK documentary photographers of his generation.

An International Career

He journeyed across the globe as a freelance 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, battlefields in the Balkans and throughout Africa, the consequences of the Falklands conflict and four US election campaigns. Additionally, he produced lyrical landscapes of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he shot more than two million photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He continued posting historical and new images daily on online platforms until a short time before his passing, and had been arranging to give a talk on his career and experiences.

Memorable Assignments

Tales from a rollercoaster career featured an costly business class flight in 1991 to reach the burial in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from sunstroke 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, falling into the sea on Brighton beach were carried across multiple columns of a front page, and are often reprinted as a striking example of staged photo hubris. His 2016’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, took the title from an irritated John Major hitting him with a folded briefing paper.

Professional Highlights

He became the a major newspaper’s most youthful staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and worked around the world for almost ten years, including coverage of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he saw as censorship of his most powerful images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was assembled to create a major newspaper. He played a key role in forming the style of journalistic photography that the paper was famous for, helping set new standards for news photography and newspaper design, in dramatic 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 documenting the collapse of communism.

He operated independently 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 led to an display launched in London – where he gave a private viewing to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a emotional book, Remembered.

Early Life and Start

Harris was born in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later helped his son construct a darkroom in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family relocated eastwards – and to a better area – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to Chase Cross secondary modern school, learning practical skills in carpentry and metalwork, before departing at 16.

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

Peers and Impact

Other photographers, often outpaced by him, remembered his work as remarkable. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the early days, called him “a superb and brave photographer”, an inspiration to a cohort of young colleagues. Another associate, a freelance organiser, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a online service with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had first met as a toddler in primary school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they went on a road trip in Europe, posting sunny images of good meals and quality drinks, and returning to important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, completed a short time before his death, was to donate his extensive collection of five decades of work to a permanent home. Among his favourite archive images he reflected on a very young Harris drinking 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 married twice, both marriages ended in divorce.

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