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The photojournalist Brian Harris, who has died at the age of 73 from cancer, left school at 16 to become a messenger boy, and went on to become one of the most respected UK photojournalists of his era.

An International Professional Journey

He travelled the world as a freelance or a staffer for major British titles, documenting major happenings including the fall of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkans and throughout Africa, the consequences of the Falklands war and several US election campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic landscapes of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

By his own calculation he shot over 2m photographs, taking an average of 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He kept sharing archive and recent images daily on online platforms up to a few weeks before his passing, and had been arranging to give a talk on his life and work.

Notable Assignments

Stories from a turbulent career included an expenses-shredding premium flight in 1991 to reach the funeral in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed from heatstroke and pneumonia and was cooled down with ice that had been used to preserve the body.

His 1983’s images of the then Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, falling into the sea on Brighton beach were carried 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 exasperated John Major hitting him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Career Milestones

He was appointed as the Times’ youngest ever staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and was based around the world for almost ten years, including coverage of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he saw as editing of his most powerful images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was assembled to launch a major newspaper. He was instrumental in shaping the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping raise the bar for press images and broadsheet design, in dramatic 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 eastern Europe recording the collapse of communism.

He operated independently after being let go in 1999, and major projects thereafter included a year spent photographing 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 the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a emotional book, Remembered.

Background and Beginnings

Harris was born 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 estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to Chase Cross secondary modern school, acquiring practical skills in woodwork and metalwork, before departing at 16.

At a Fleet Street photo agency, he rose rapidly from messenger boy to photographer, and began his professional career at eastern London local papers before progressing to national publications.

Colleagues and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often outpaced by him, remembered his work as remarkable. A colleague, who worked with him in the initial stages, called him “a great and brave photographer”, an inspiration to a cohort of junior colleagues. Tim Dawson, a freelance organiser, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a online service with Nikki, whom he had first met as a toddler in infant school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After learning of his illness, they went on a driving tour in Europe, sharing sunny images of good meals and quality drinks, and revisiting significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, completed a short time before his demise, 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 youthful 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 married 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.