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The photojournalist Brian Harris, who passed away aged 73 of cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to become a messenger boy, and eventually became among the most esteemed UK photojournalists of his era.

An International Career

He journeyed the world as a independent or a staffer for major British titles, covering major happenings including the fall 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. Additionally, he produced lyrical landscapes of the countryside around his Essex home.

According to his estimates he took more than two million images, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He continued posting archive and recent images daily on social media up to a few weeks before his passing, and had been planning to give a talk on his life and work.

Memorable Assignments

Stories from a turbulent career included an expenses-shredding business class flight in 1991 to reach the funeral in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed from heatstroke and pneumonia and was treated 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 sea 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, was named after an irritated John Major hitting him with a folded briefing paper.

Professional Milestones

He became the Times’ 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 coverage of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he considered censorship of his strongest images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was put together to launch a new newspaper. He played a key role in forming the style of editorial photography that the paper became known for, helping raise the bar for news photography and newspaper design, in dramatic images covering multiple pages. Among numerous awards, he was honoured as the What the Papers Say photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe documenting the collapse of communism.

He operated independently after being made redundant in 1999, and major projects thereafter included a year spent photographing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which led to an display launched in London – where he gave a private viewing to Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a emotional book, Remembered.

Background and Start

Harris was born in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later helped his son construct a photo lab in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family relocated farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to a local secondary modern school, acquiring practical skills in carpentry and metal crafting, before departing at 16.

At a Fleet Street photo agency, he quickly advanced from messenger boy to photographer, and launched his professional career at eastern London local papers before progressing to national publications.

Colleagues and Impact

Other photographers, often scooped by him, remembered his work as remarkable. A colleague, who worked with him in the initial stages, described him as “a superb and fearless photographer”, an influence to a generation of junior colleagues. Tim Dawson, a freelance organiser, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had initially encountered as a toddler in primary school, and they became inseparable partners through his final decades. After learning of his illness, they went 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 last task, completed a short time before his death, was to transfer his extensive collection of five decades of work to a permanent home. Among his preferred archive images he reflected on a very young Harris drinking large glasses of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a blessed life I’ve had – no regrets and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was married twice, each union concluded with divorce.

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