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The photojournalist B. Harris, who has died at the age of 73 from cancer, left school at 16 to become a messenger boy, and eventually became among the most esteemed UK documentary photographers of his generation.

A Global Professional Journey

He journeyed across the globe as a independent or a staffer for major British titles, covering such events as 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 consequences of the Falklands conflict and several US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic landscapes of the countryside around his Essex home.

According to his estimates he took over two million photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He kept sharing archive and new images daily on social media until a short time before his death, and had been planning to give a talk on his life and work.

Memorable Projects

Tales from a rollercoaster career featured an costly premium flight in 1991 to reach the funeral in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed 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, falling into the sea on Brighton beach were published across eight columns of a leading page, and are regularly reproduced as a hideous example of photo-opportunity hubris. His 2016 memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, took the title from an exasperated John Major striking him with a folded briefing paper.

Career Milestones

He became the Times’ youngest ever staff photographer when he started there 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 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 put together to launch a major newspaper. He played a key role in shaping the style of editorial photography that the paper was famous for, helping raise the bar for news photography and newspaper design, in striking images filling 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 operated independently after being let go in 1999, and significant projects after that included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, which resulted in 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 raised in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later helped his son construct a photo lab in the garage. In the 1950s, the family moved eastwards – and up in the world – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended a local secondary modern school, acquiring practical skills in carpentry and metalwork, before leaving at 16.

At a Fleet Street agency, he quickly advanced from delivery boy to photographer, and began his professional career at eastern London local papers before progressing to major publications.

Peers and Legacy

Other photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as remarkable. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the initial stages, described him as “a superb and brave photographer”, an influence to a generation of junior colleagues. Tim Dawson, a freelance organiser, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki, whom he had initially encountered as a toddler in primary school, and they became close companions through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, posting sunny images of good meals and good wine, and returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, finished a few weeks before his death, was to donate his vast archive of five decades of work to a long-term repository. Among his favourite historical photos he commented on a very young 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, each union ended in divorce.

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