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The photojournalist B. Harris, who has died at the age of 73 of cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and eventually became one of the most respected UK photojournalists of his era.

A Global Professional Journey

He journeyed across the globe as a freelance or a staffer for major British publications, documenting major happenings including 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 conflict and four US election campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic scenic views of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he took more than 2m images, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He continued posting historical and new images daily on online platforms up to a short time before his death, and had been arranging to give a talk on his life and work.

Notable Assignments

Tales from a turbulent career featured an costly premium flight in 1991 to attend the burial in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed 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 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.

Career Milestones

He was appointed as the Times’ most youthful staff photographer when he joined the paper in 1976, at the age of 26, and was based around the world for nearly a decade, 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 starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was put together to launch a major newspaper. He was instrumental in shaping the style of journalistic photography that the paper was famous for, helping raise the bar for press images and newspaper design, in striking images covering multiple pages. Among many awards, he was honoured as the What the Papers Say photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc documenting the collapse of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being let go in 1999, and significant projects thereafter included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which led to an exhibition launched in London – where he gave a private viewing to Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Background and Start

Harris was born in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later helped his son construct a photo lab in the garage. In the 1950s, the family relocated farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended a local secondary modern school, acquiring practical skills in woodwork and metalwork, before leaving 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 moving on to national publications.

Colleagues and Impact

Other photographers, often outpaced by him, recalled his work as astonishing. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the early days, described him as “a great and fearless photographer”, an inspiration to a cohort of junior colleagues. Another associate, a freelance organiser, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris made contact through a website with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had first met as a three-year-old in primary school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After learning of his illness, they went on a road trip in Europe, posting sunny images of fine dining and quality drinks, and returning to important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, finished a few weeks before his death, was to transfer his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his favourite historical photos he commented on a very young 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, both marriages ended in divorce.

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