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The photojournalist Brian Harris, who passed away aged 73 from cancer, left school at 16 to become a messenger boy, and eventually became one of the most respected British documentary photographers of his generation.

A Global Professional Journey

He journeyed across the globe as a freelance or a staffer for Fleet Street publications, covering such events as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkan region and throughout Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands conflict and several US election campaigns. He also created poetic scenic views of the countryside around his Essex home.

By his own calculation he took more than two million photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he stated that figure some years back. He kept sharing archive and new images each day on online platforms until a few weeks before his death, and had been arranging to give a talk on his life and work.

Notable Assignments

Stories 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 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 tide on Brighton beach were published across eight 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, took the title from an exasperated John Major hitting him with a folded 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 almost ten years, including reporting of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he saw as censorship of his strongest images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was assembled to create a major newspaper. He played a key role in shaping the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping set new standards for news photography and broadsheet design, in striking images covering front and back pages. Among many awards, he was honoured as the What the Papers Say photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc recording the collapse of communism.

He operated independently after being made redundant in 1999, and significant projects thereafter 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 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 technician who later helped his son 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 useful skills in woodwork and metalwork, before departing at 16.

At a central London agency, he quickly advanced from delivery boy to photographer, and began his professional career at east London local papers before progressing to major publications.

Peers and Impact

Other photographers, often outpaced by him, recalled his work as astonishing. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the initial stages, called him “a great and fearless photographer”, an inspiration to a generation of junior colleagues. Tim Dawson, a freelance organiser, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a online service with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had first met as a toddler in infant school, and they became inseparable partners through his final decades. After learning of his illness, they went on a driving tour 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 demise, was to donate his extensive collection of five decades of work to a permanent home. Among his favourite archive images he reflected on a youthful 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 concluded with divorce.

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