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The photojournalist Brian Harris, who has died at the age of 73 of cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to work as a courier, and eventually became one of the most respected UK photojournalists of his generation.

A Global Professional Journey

He journeyed the world as a freelance or a staffer for major British publications, covering such events as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkans and throughout Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands war and several US election campaigns. Additionally, he produced lyrical scenic views of the countryside around his home county of Essex home.

By his own calculation he took over two million photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he stated that figure some years back. He continued posting archive and recent images daily on online platforms until a few weeks before his death, and had been arranging to give a talk on his career and experiences.

Memorable Projects

Stories from a rollercoaster career included an costly premium flight in 1991 to reach the funeral in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from sunstroke and pneumonia and was cooled down with ice that had been employed to cool the body.

His 1983 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 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 exasperated John Major striking him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Career Highlights

He was appointed as 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 internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he saw as editing of his most powerful images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was put together to create a major newspaper. He played a key role in forming the style of editorial photography that the paper was famous for, helping raise the bar for press images and newspaper design, in striking images covering front and back pages. Among numerous awards, he was honoured as the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc documenting the fall of communism.

He operated independently after being let go in 1999, and significant projects after that 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 personal tour to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Background and Start

Harris was raised in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later helped his son build a darkroom 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 went to Chase Cross secondary modern school, learning practical skills in woodwork and metal crafting, before leaving at 16.

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

Colleagues and Impact

Fellow photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as astonishing. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the early days, called him “a superb and brave photographer”, an inspiration to a cohort of junior colleagues. Another associate, a union representative, 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 first met as a three-year-old in primary school, and they became inseparable partners through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, sharing sunny images of fine dining and good wine, and returning to important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, finished a few weeks before his demise, was to donate his extensive collection of five decades of work to a permanent home. Among his favourite historical photos he commented on a very young Harris consuming large glasses of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a blessed life I’ve had – no remorse and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was married twice, each union concluded with divorce.

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