🔗 Share this article

The photographer Brian Harris, who has died aged 73 of cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and eventually became among the most esteemed British documentary photographers of his era.

An International Career

He journeyed across the globe as a independent or a staffer for Fleet Street publications, documenting such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkan region and throughout Africa, the consequences of the Falklands war and several US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced lyrical landscapes of the rural areas around his Essex home.

According to his estimates he shot over 2m photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He kept sharing historical and new images each day on online platforms until a short time before his passing, and had been planning to deliver a lecture on his life and work.

Memorable Projects

Stories from a rollercoaster career included an costly business class flight in 1991 to reach the funeral in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from heatstroke and pneumonia and was treated 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, toppling into the tide on Brighton beach were carried across multiple columns of a leading page, and are often reprinted as a striking example of photo-opportunity hubris. His 2016 memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, was named after an irritated John Major hitting him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Career Milestones

He became the a major newspaper’s most youthful staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and worked around the world for nearly a decade, including reporting of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he saw as censorship of his strongest images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was assembled to create a major newspaper. He was instrumental in shaping the style of editorial photography that the paper became known for, helping set new standards for news photography and newspaper design, in striking images covering front and back pages. Among many awards, he was honoured as the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe recording the collapse of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being made redundant 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 moving book, Remembered.

Early Life and Start

Harris was born in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later helped his son build a darkroom in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family moved eastwards – and to a better area – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended a local secondary modern school, learning useful skills in carpentry and metal crafting, before departing at 16.

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

Colleagues and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often outpaced by him, recalled his work as remarkable. A colleague, who collaborated with him in the early days, described him as “a great and fearless 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 made contact through a online service with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had first met as a three-year-old in primary school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After learning of his illness, they went on a road trip in Europe, posting bright images of good meals and quality drinks, and revisiting important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, finished 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 consuming large glasses of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a fortunate life I’ve had – no remorse and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was married twice, each union concluded with divorce.

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