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The photojournalist B. Harris, who passed away aged 73 of cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to work as a courier, and eventually became one of the most respected British photojournalists of his generation.

A Global Career

He journeyed across the globe as a independent or a staffer for major British publications, covering major happenings including the collapse of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkans and throughout Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands conflict and four US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced lyrical scenic views of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he took over 2m images, averaging 100 a day, but he stated that figure some years back. He continued posting historical and recent images each day on social media until a few weeks before his death, and had been arranging to deliver a lecture on his life and work.

Notable Assignments

Stories from a turbulent career featured an expenses-shredding 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 at that time Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, toppling into the tide on Brighton beach were carried across eight columns of a leading page, and are often reprinted as a hideous example of photo-opportunity 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.

Professional Highlights

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 almost ten years, including coverage of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he considered censorship of his most powerful images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was assembled 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 dramatic images covering front and back pages. Among many awards, he was named the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc documenting the fall of communism.

He operated independently after being let go 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 led to an display launched in London – where he gave a private viewing to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a emotional book, Remembered.

Early Life and Start

Harris was raised in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later assisted him construct a photo lab in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family relocated eastwards – and up in the world – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended a local secondary modern school, learning practical skills in woodwork and metal crafting, before leaving at 16.

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

Colleagues and Impact

Fellow photographers, often scooped by him, remembered his work as remarkable. Nick Turpin, who worked with him in the initial stages, described him as “a great and fearless photographer”, an inspiration to a cohort of junior colleagues. Tim Dawson, a union representative, said he “reimagined 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 first met as a toddler in infant school, and they became inseparable partners through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they went on a road trip in Europe, posting bright images of good meals and good wine, and revisiting important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

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

He was married 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.