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The photojournalist B. Harris, who has died at the age of 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 generation.

An International Professional Journey

He travelled across the globe as a independent or a employee for Fleet Street publications, covering major happenings including the fall of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkans and throughout Africa, the consequences of the Falklands war and several US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic scenic views of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

By his own calculation he shot over 2m images, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He kept sharing archive and new images each day on online platforms up to a short time before his death, and had been arranging to deliver a lecture on his life and work.

Notable Assignments

Stories from a turbulent career included an costly business class flight in 1991 to attend the burial in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed from sunstroke and pneumonia and was treated with ice that had been employed to cool the body.

His 1983 images of the at that time Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, toppling into the tide on Brighton beach were published across eight columns of a front page, and are often reprinted 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 was appointed as the Times’ most youthful staff photographer when he joined the paper in 1976, at the age of 26, and worked around the world for almost ten years, including coverage of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he considered censorship of his most powerful images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was put together to launch a new newspaper. He was instrumental in shaping the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping raise the bar for news photography and broadsheet design, in dramatic images filling multiple pages. Among many 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 worked as a freelance after being let go in 1999, and major projects thereafter included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, which resulted in an display 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 born in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later helped his son construct a darkroom in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family moved farther east – and up in the world – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended a local secondary modern school, acquiring useful skills in woodwork and metal crafting, before departing at 16.

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

Peers and Impact

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

Private World

In 2001 Harris made contact through a website with Nikki, whom he had first met as a three-year-old in primary school, and they became close companions through his remaining years. After learning of his illness, they embarked on a road trip in Europe, sharing bright images of good meals and good wine, and returning to 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 archive images he reflected on a very young Harris drinking 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, each union ended in divorce.

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