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The photojournalist B. Harris, who has died aged 73 of cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to work as a courier, and went on to become among the most esteemed UK photojournalists of his era.

A Global Professional Journey

He travelled the world as a freelance or a staffer for major British publications, 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 throughout Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands war and four US presidential campaigns. He also created poetic landscapes of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

By his own calculation he took over two million images, averaging 100 a day, but he stated that figure 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 arranging to give a talk on his life and work.

Notable Assignments

Stories from a turbulent career featured an expenses-shredding premium flight in 1991 to reach the funeral in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed 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 published across multiple 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, took the title from an exasperated John Major hitting him with a folded briefing paper.

Career Milestones

He became the Times’ youngest ever staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and was based around the world for nearly a decade, including coverage of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he considered editing of his most powerful images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was assembled to create a new newspaper. He was instrumental in shaping the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping set new standards for news photography and broadsheet design, in striking images filling front and back pages. Among numerous awards, he was honoured as the What the Papers Say photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe recording the fall of communism.

He operated independently after being made redundant in 1999, and significant projects thereafter included a year spent photographing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which led to an display 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 Beginnings

Harris was raised in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later assisted him construct a photo lab in the garage. In the 1950s, the family relocated 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 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.

Peers and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often outpaced by him, recalled his work as remarkable. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the early days, called him “a superb and fearless photographer”, an inspiration to a generation of young colleagues. Tim Dawson, a union representative, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had first met as a three-year-old in infant school, and they became close companions through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, posting bright images of fine dining and good wine, and returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, completed a short time before his demise, was to donate his extensive collection of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his favourite archive images he reflected on a youthful Harris consuming generous servings of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a blessed life I’ve had – no remorse and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was wed twice, both marriages ended in divorce.

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