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The photojournalist B. Harris, who passed away aged 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.

A Global Professional Journey

He travelled the world as a independent or a employee for Fleet Street titles, documenting major happenings including the collapse of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkan region and across Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands war and four US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic scenic views of the countryside around his Essex home.

According to his estimates he took more than 2m photographs, taking an average of 100 a day, but he stated that figure several years ago. He continued posting historical and recent images each day on social media up to a short time before his death, and had been planning to give a talk on his life and work.

Memorable Assignments

Tales from a turbulent career featured an expenses-shredding business class flight in 1991 to reach 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’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 striking example of staged photo hubris. His 2016’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, took the title from an irritated John Major striking him with a folded briefing paper.

Professional Highlights

He became 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 nearly a decade, including reporting of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he saw as editing of his most powerful images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was put together to create a new newspaper. He played a key role in forming the style of journalistic photography that the paper was famous for, helping raise the bar for news photography and newspaper design, in dramatic images filling front and back pages. Among numerous awards, he was honoured as the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc recording the collapse of communism.

He operated independently after being let go in 1999, and significant projects thereafter 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 personal tour to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a emotional book, Remembered.

Early Life and Beginnings

Harris was raised in east 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 carpentry and metal crafting, before leaving at 16.

At a central London 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

Other photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as astonishing. A colleague, who worked with him in the initial stages, described him as “a superb and fearless photographer”, an influence to a cohort of junior colleagues. Tim Dawson, a union representative, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a online service with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had initially encountered as a three-year-old in primary school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they went on a road trip in Europe, posting bright images of good meals and quality drinks, and revisiting significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a few weeks before his death, was to transfer his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his favourite archive images he reflected 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 wed twice, both marriages concluded with divorce.

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