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The photojournalist B. Harris, who has died at the age of 73 of cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to become a messenger boy, and went on to become among the most esteemed British photojournalists of his era.

A Global Professional Journey

He travelled across the globe as a freelance or a staffer for Fleet Street publications, covering major happenings including the fall of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkan region and across Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands war and four US presidential campaigns. He also created lyrical landscapes of the countryside around his Essex home.

According to his estimates he shot over two million images, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He continued posting archive and recent images each day on social media up to a few weeks before his death, and had been planning to deliver a lecture on his life and work.

Memorable Assignments

Stories from a turbulent career featured an expenses-shredding business class flight in 1991 to attend 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 images of the at that time Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, toppling into the sea on Brighton beach were carried across multiple columns of a leading page, and are regularly reproduced as a striking example of staged photo hubris. His 2016 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 became the a major newspaper’s most youthful 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 censorship of his most powerful images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was assembled to create a new newspaper. He played a key role in forming the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping set new standards for press images and newspaper design, in dramatic images covering multiple pages. Among numerous awards, he was honoured as the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe documenting the collapse of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being let go in 1999, and significant projects thereafter included a year spent photographing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, which led to 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 raised in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later helped his son construct a darkroom in the garage. In the 1950s, the family relocated farther east – 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 metalwork, before leaving at 16.

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

Peers and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often scooped 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 cohort of junior colleagues. Tim Dawson, a union representative, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris made contact 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, sharing bright images of good meals and good wine, and revisiting important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, completed a short time before his demise, was to transfer his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his favourite historical photos he reflected on a very young Harris consuming generous servings 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, 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.