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The photojournalist B. Harris, who passed away aged 73 of cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and went on to become among the most esteemed UK documentary photographers of his era.

An International Professional Journey

He journeyed the world as a independent or a employee for major British titles, 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 across Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands conflict and four US election campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic landscapes of the rural areas around his Essex home.

By his own calculation he shot more than two million photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He continued posting archive and recent 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 expenses-shredding business class flight in 1991 to attend the burial in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed from sunstroke 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 tide on Brighton beach were published across multiple 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, was named after an irritated John Major striking him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Professional Highlights

He was appointed as the a major newspaper’s youngest ever staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and worked around the world for almost ten years, including reporting of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he saw as censorship of his most powerful images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was assembled to create a new newspaper. He played a key role in forming the style of journalistic photography that the paper was famous for, helping set new standards for press images and newspaper design, in dramatic images filling multiple pages. Among many awards, he was named the industry-recognised 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 significant projects thereafter included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, which led to an display launched in London – where he gave a personal tour to Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Early Life and Start

Harris was born in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later helped his son construct a darkroom in the garage. In the 1950s, the family moved 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 metalwork, before leaving at 16.

At a Fleet Street 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 Legacy

Fellow 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’ peak era”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris made contact through a website with Nikki, whom he had initially encountered as a toddler in primary school, and they became inseparable partners through his final decades. After learning of his illness, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, sharing sunny images of fine dining and quality drinks, and returning to important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, finished a short time 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 regrets and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was wed 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.