🔗 Share this article

The photojournalist Brian 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 British documentary photographers of his generation.

A Global Career

He travelled the world as a independent or a staffer for Fleet Street publications, covering such events as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkan region and throughout Africa, the consequences of the Falklands conflict and four US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic scenic views of the countryside around his Essex home.

By his own calculation he shot more than 2m photographs, taking an average of 100 a day, but he stated that figure several years ago. He continued posting historical and new images each day on social media up to a short time before his passing, and had been arranging to deliver a lecture on his life and work.

Memorable Assignments

Stories from a rollercoaster career included an expenses-shredding premium flight in 1991 to attend the funeral in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted 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 regularly reproduced as a hideous example of staged photo hubris. His 2016 memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, was named after an exasperated John Major striking him with a folded briefing paper.

Professional Highlights

He was appointed as the a major newspaper’s youngest ever staff photographer when he joined the paper in 1976, at the age of 26, and worked 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 editing of his strongest images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was assembled to launch a new newspaper. He played a key role in forming the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping raise the bar for press images and broadsheet design, in dramatic 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 eastern Europe recording the fall of communism.

He operated independently after being let go in 1999, and major projects after that included a year spent photographing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, which resulted in an display launched in London – where he gave a private viewing to Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a emotional book, Remembered.

Background and Start

Harris was born in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later assisted him construct a darkroom 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 went to Chase Cross secondary modern school, acquiring practical skills in woodwork and metal crafting, before departing at 16.

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

Colleagues and Impact

Other photographers, often scooped by him, remembered his work as remarkable. A colleague, who collaborated with him in the early days, described him as “a superb and fearless photographer”, an inspiration to a cohort of young colleagues. Tim Dawson, a freelance organiser, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris made contact through a online service with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had initially encountered as a toddler in infant school, and they became inseparable partners through his final decades. After learning of his illness, they went on a driving tour in Europe, sharing bright images of good meals and quality drinks, and returning to important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a short time before his death, was to transfer his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a permanent home. Among his favourite historical photos he reflected on a very young Harris drinking large glasses 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 later union, Nikki’s daughter, Holly, and by his sister, Jan.