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The photojournalist B. Harris, who passed away aged 73 of cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to become a messenger boy, and went on to become among the most esteemed British photojournalists of his generation.

An International Career

He travelled the world as a freelance or a employee for major British publications, covering such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkan region and across Africa, the consequences of the Falklands war and four US election campaigns. He also created lyrical landscapes of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

By his own calculation he took over 2m photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He kept sharing historical and recent images daily on social media until a short time before his passing, and had been planning to give a talk on his life and work.

Notable Projects

Tales from a rollercoaster career included an costly premium flight in 1991 to reach the burial in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed from heatstroke and pneumonia and was treated with ice that had been employed to cool the body.

His 1983’s images of the at that time Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, falling into the tide on Brighton beach were published across eight columns of a front page, and are regularly reproduced as a hideous example of staged photo hubris. His 2016’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, was named after an exasperated John Major striking him with a folded briefing paper.

Career Milestones

He became the Times’ most youthful staff photographer when he joined the paper in 1976, at the age of 26, and worked around the world for nearly a decade, including coverage of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he considered censorship of his strongest images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief 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 press images and newspaper design, in striking images covering front and back pages. Among numerous awards, he was named the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc recording the fall of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being let go in 1999, and major projects thereafter included a year spent photographing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which resulted in an exhibition launched in London – where he gave a personal tour to Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a emotional book, Remembered.

Early Life and Start

Harris was raised in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later assisted him construct a darkroom in the garage. In the 1950s, the family moved farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to a local secondary modern school, acquiring useful skills in carpentry and metal crafting, before departing at 16.

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

Colleagues and Impact

Other photographers, often outpaced by him, recalled his work as remarkable. Nick Turpin, who worked with him in the early days, called him “a superb and brave photographer”, an influence to a cohort of young colleagues. Tim Dawson, a freelance organiser, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Personal Life

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 remaining years. After learning of his illness, they embarked on a road trip in Europe, sharing sunny images of fine dining and good wine, and revisiting significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, completed a few weeks before his death, was to transfer his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his preferred archive images he commented on a very young Harris drinking generous servings of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a blessed life I’ve had – no regrets and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was married twice, both marriages ended in divorce.

He is survived by Nikki, his son Jacob, from his later union, Nikki’s daughter, Holly, and by his sister, Jan.