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The photojournalist B. Harris, who passed away at the age of 73 from cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and eventually became among the most esteemed British photojournalists of his generation.

A Global Career

He journeyed across the globe as a freelance or a employee for Fleet Street publications, documenting such events as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkan region and across Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands conflict and several US election campaigns. Additionally, he produced lyrical landscapes of the countryside around his home county of Essex home.

By his own calculation he took over 2m images, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He kept sharing archive and new images each day on online platforms up to a short time before his death, and had been arranging to give a talk on his life and work.

Memorable Assignments

Stories from a turbulent career included an costly business class flight in 1991 to attend 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 used to preserve the body.

His 1983 images of the then Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, toppling into the tide on Brighton beach were published 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, took the title from an exasperated John Major hitting him with a folded briefing paper.

Career Milestones

He became the Times’ youngest ever staff photographer when he joined the paper in 1976, at the age of 26, and was based around the world for almost ten years, including coverage of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he saw as censorship of his most powerful images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was put together to launch a new newspaper. He was instrumental in forming the style of journalistic photography that the paper was famous 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 documenting the fall of communism.

He operated independently after being made redundant in 1999, and significant projects thereafter included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, 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 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 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, acquiring practical skills in woodwork and metalwork, before departing at 16.

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

Peers and Legacy

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

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a online service with Nikki, whom he had initially encountered as a three-year-old in primary school, and they became close companions through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they went on a driving tour in Europe, sharing sunny images of fine dining and good wine, and returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, finished a few weeks before his demise, was to donate his vast archive of five decades of work to a permanent home. Among his preferred archive images he commented on a youthful Harris consuming generous servings of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a fortunate 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 second marriage, Nikki’s daughter, Holly, and by his sister, Jan.