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

A Global Professional Journey

He journeyed across the globe as a freelance or a employee for Fleet Street publications, covering such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkans and across Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands war and four US election campaigns. He also created poetic scenic views of the rural areas around his Essex home.

According to his estimates he shot over 2m photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he stated that figure some years back. He continued posting archive and recent images daily on online platforms up to a few weeks before his death, and had been planning to deliver a lecture on his career and experiences.

Notable Projects

Tales from a turbulent career included an expenses-shredding business class flight in 1991 to attend the funeral in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed from heatstroke 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 often reprinted as a hideous example of staged photo hubris. His 2016 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 became the a major newspaper’s youngest ever staff photographer when he joined the paper in 1976, at the age of 26, and worked around the world for nearly a decade, including reporting of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he considered editing of his strongest images of starvation 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 journalistic photography that the paper was famous for, helping raise the bar for news photography and newspaper design, in striking images covering front and back pages. Among numerous awards, he was named the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe documenting the fall of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being let go in 1999, and major 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 personal tour to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Background and Start

Harris was born in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later assisted him construct a darkroom in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family moved farther east – and up in the world – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended a local secondary modern school, learning practical skills in carpentry and metal crafting, before departing at 16.

At a Fleet Street agency, he quickly advanced from messenger boy to photographer, and began his professional career at east London local papers before moving on to major publications.

Peers and Legacy

Other photographers, often outpaced by him, remembered his work as astonishing. A colleague, who worked with him in the initial stages, called him “a superb and fearless photographer”, an inspiration to a cohort of young colleagues. Another associate, a union representative, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris made contact through a online service with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had first met as a toddler in primary school, and they became close companions through his remaining years. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they went on a road trip in Europe, sharing bright images of fine dining and quality drinks, and returning to important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a short time before his demise, was to donate his vast archive of five decades of work to a permanent home. Among his favourite archive images he reflected on a youthful Harris consuming 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 ended in divorce.

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