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The photographer Brian Harris, who passed away aged 73 from cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to work as a courier, and went on to become among the most esteemed UK documentary photographers of his era.

An International Career

He journeyed across the globe as a independent or a employee for major British publications, documenting major happenings including the fall of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkan region and throughout Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands war and several US presidential campaigns. He also created poetic landscapes of the countryside around his Essex home.

According to his estimates he shot over two million photographs, taking an average of 100 a day, but he stated that figure several years ago. He kept sharing archive and recent images daily on online platforms up to a few weeks before his passing, and had been arranging to deliver a lecture on his career and experiences.

Notable Assignments

Tales from a rollercoaster career included an costly business class flight in 1991 to attend the funeral in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from sunstroke and pneumonia and was cooled down 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 front page, and are regularly reproduced as a hideous example of photo-opportunity hubris. His 2016 memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, was named after an exasperated John Major striking him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Professional 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 almost ten years, including coverage of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he considered censorship of his strongest images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was put together to create a major newspaper. He was instrumental in forming the style of editorial photography that the paper became known for, helping raise the bar for press images and newspaper design, in striking images covering front and back 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 fall of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being made redundant in 1999, and major projects after that included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, 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 emotional book, Remembered.

Background and Beginnings

Harris was raised in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later assisted him build a photo lab in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family moved eastwards – and to a better area – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to a local secondary modern school, learning practical skills in carpentry and metalwork, before departing at 16.

At a Fleet Street agency, he rose rapidly from delivery boy to photographer, and launched his working life at eastern London local papers before progressing to major publications.

Peers and Legacy

Other photographers, often scooped by him, remembered his work as astonishing. Nick Turpin, who worked with him in the initial stages, described him as “a superb and fearless photographer”, an inspiration to a cohort of junior colleagues. Another associate, a union representative, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a online service with Nikki, whom he had initially encountered as a toddler in primary school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After learning of his illness, they embarked on a road trip in Europe, posting bright images of good meals and quality drinks, and returning to important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, finished a few weeks before his death, was to donate his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a permanent home. Among his preferred historical photos 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 wed 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.