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The photojournalist Brian Harris, who passed away at the age of 73 from cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and went on to become among the most esteemed British photojournalists of his generation.

A Global Career

He travelled the world as a freelance or a employee for major British titles, documenting such events as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkans and across Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands conflict and four US presidential campaigns. He also created lyrical landscapes of the countryside around his Essex home.

According to his estimates he took over two million images, averaging 100 a day, but he stated that figure several years ago. He kept sharing archive and recent images each day on social media until a short time before his death, and had been arranging to give a talk on his career and experiences.

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 collapsed from sunstroke and pneumonia and was cooled down with ice that had been used to preserve the body.

His 1983 images of the at that time Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, falling into the tide 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’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, was named after an irritated John Major striking him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Career Milestones

He became the a major newspaper’s youngest ever staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and worked around the world for almost ten years, including reporting of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he considered censorship of his most powerful images of famine 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 forming the style of editorial photography that the paper became known for, helping set new standards for news photography and broadsheet design, in dramatic images filling front and back pages. Among numerous awards, he was named the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc documenting the fall of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being let go in 1999, and significant projects after that included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which led to an exhibition launched in London – where he gave a private viewing to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a emotional book, Remembered.

Background and Beginnings

Harris was born in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician 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 housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to a local secondary modern school, learning useful skills in carpentry and metalwork, before departing at 16.

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

Peers and Legacy

Other photographers, often scooped by him, remembered his work as remarkable. A colleague, who collaborated with him in the early days, called him “a great and brave photographer”, an influence to a cohort 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 online service with Nikki, whom he had initially encountered as a toddler in primary school, and they became close companions through his remaining years. After learning of his illness, they embarked on a road trip in Europe, sharing sunny images of good meals and good wine, and returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a few weeks before his demise, was to transfer his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his preferred archive images he commented on a youthful Harris consuming 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 wed twice, both marriages concluded with divorce.

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