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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 photojournalists of his generation.

A Global Career

He journeyed the world as a independent or a employee for Fleet Street titles, covering major happenings including the collapse of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkan region and across Africa, the consequences of the Falklands conflict and several US presidential campaigns. He also created lyrical 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 continued posting historical and new images daily on social media up to a short time before his death, and had been arranging to give a talk on his life and work.

Notable Assignments

Stories from a rollercoaster career included an expenses-shredding business class flight in 1991 to attend the burial in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed from sunstroke 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, falling into the tide on Brighton beach were carried across eight 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, took the title from an irritated John Major hitting him with a folded briefing paper.

Career Milestones

He became the Times’ most youthful staff photographer when he started there 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 saw as censorship of his most powerful images of famine 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 shaping the style of journalistic photography that the paper was famous for, helping set new standards for press images and newspaper 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 eastern Europe documenting the collapse of communism.

He worked as a freelance 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 resulted in an display launched in London – where he gave a private viewing to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Early Life 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 moved eastwards – and to a better area – to the Rise Park 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 quickly advanced from delivery boy to photographer, and launched his professional career at eastern London local papers before moving on to major publications.

Peers and Impact

Fellow photographers, often outpaced by him, remembered his work as astonishing. Nick Turpin, who worked with him in the initial stages, called him “a great and fearless photographer”, an influence to a generation of young colleagues. Another associate, a union representative, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris made contact through a website with Nikki, whom he had first met as a toddler in primary school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they went on a driving tour in Europe, sharing bright images of good meals and quality drinks, and returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, completed a few weeks before his death, was to donate his extensive collection of 55 years’ work to a permanent home. Among his favourite historical photos 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 remorse and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was wed 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.