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

An International Career

He travelled across the globe as a independent or a employee for major British titles, documenting such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkan region and across Africa, the consequences of the Falklands war and several US election campaigns. Additionally, he produced lyrical landscapes of the rural areas around his Essex home.

According to his estimates he took more than two million images, averaging 100 a day, but he stated that figure several years ago. He kept sharing historical and recent images each day on online platforms up to a short time before his death, and had been planning to give a talk on his career and experiences.

Memorable Projects

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 fainted from heatstroke and pneumonia and was treated 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 published across multiple columns of a leading page, and are often reprinted as a striking 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.

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 reporting of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he saw as censorship of his strongest images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was assembled to launch a major newspaper. He played a key role in shaping the style of editorial photography that the paper became known for, helping set new standards for news photography and broadsheet design, in striking images filling front and back pages. Among numerous awards, he was honoured as the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe recording the fall of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being made redundant in 1999, and significant projects after that included a year spent photographing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which resulted in an display launched in London – where he gave a personal tour 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 technician who later helped his son build a photo lab in the garage. In the 1950s, the family relocated eastwards – and to a better area – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended Chase Cross secondary modern school, learning practical skills in carpentry and metal crafting, before leaving at 16.

At a central London photo agency, he rose rapidly from delivery boy to photographer, and began his professional career at east 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 collaborated with him in the early days, described him as “a superb and brave photographer”, an influence to a generation of junior colleagues. Another associate, a freelance organiser, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris made contact through a online service with Nikki, whom he had initially encountered as a toddler in infant school, and they became close companions through his remaining years. After learning of his illness, they went on a road trip in Europe, posting sunny images of good meals and good wine, and revisiting important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a few weeks before his death, was to transfer his vast archive of five decades of work to a long-term repository. Among his preferred archive images he commented on a youthful 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 wed twice, each union ended in divorce.

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