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The photojournalist B. Harris, who has died at the age of 73 of cancer, left school at 16 to become a messenger boy, and eventually became one of the most respected British photojournalists of his era.

A Global Professional Journey

He journeyed the world as a freelance or a staffer for Fleet Street publications, documenting major happenings including the collapse of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkan region and throughout Africa, the consequences of the Falklands conflict and several US presidential campaigns. He also created lyrical scenic views of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he took over two million images, taking an average of 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He continued posting archive and new images each day on online platforms up to a few weeks before his death, and had been planning to give a talk on his life and work.

Memorable Projects

Stories from a rollercoaster career included an costly premium flight in 1991 to attend the burial in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from heatstroke 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, toppling into the tide on Brighton beach were carried across multiple columns of a front page, and are regularly reproduced as a hideous example of staged photo 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 Milestones

He became the a major newspaper’s most youthful 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 considered censorship of his most powerful images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was put together to launch a major newspaper. He was instrumental in forming the style of editorial photography that the paper became known for, helping raise the bar for press images and newspaper design, in dramatic images filling front and back pages. Among many awards, he was honoured as the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc recording the collapse 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 Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which resulted in 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 raised in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later assisted him construct a darkroom in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family moved farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to Chase Cross secondary modern school, acquiring useful skills in carpentry and metalwork, before leaving at 16.

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

Colleagues and Impact

Other photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as remarkable. A colleague, who worked with him in the initial stages, described him as “a great and fearless photographer”, an influence to a cohort of junior colleagues. Tim Dawson, a freelance organiser, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris made contact through a website with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had initially encountered as a toddler in infant school, and they became inseparable partners through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they embarked on a road trip in Europe, sharing sunny images of fine dining and good wine, and revisiting important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, completed a few weeks before his demise, was to donate his extensive collection of 55 years’ work to a permanent home. Among his preferred archive images he commented on a very young Harris consuming generous servings 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, each union concluded with divorce.

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