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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 one of the most respected UK photojournalists of his era.

A Global Professional Journey

He travelled across the globe as a freelance or a staffer for major British publications, covering such events as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkans and across Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands conflict and four US election campaigns. He also created poetic landscapes of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

By his own calculation he shot more than two million photographs, taking an average of 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He continued posting archive and recent images each day on social media until a short time before his passing, and had been arranging to give a talk on his life and work.

Memorable Assignments

Tales from a rollercoaster career featured an expenses-shredding premium flight in 1991 to reach the funeral in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from sunstroke and pneumonia and was treated 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, falling into the sea on Brighton beach were carried across multiple columns of a leading page, and are regularly reproduced as a hideous example of staged photo hubris. His 2016’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, was named after an exasperated John Major hitting him with a folded briefing paper.

Professional Milestones

He was appointed as the Times’ 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 later stepped down over what he considered editing of his strongest images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was assembled to launch a new newspaper. He was instrumental in forming the style of journalistic photography that the paper was famous for, helping set new standards for press images and newspaper design, in striking images covering front and back pages. Among many awards, he was named the What the Papers Say photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc documenting the collapse of communism.

He operated independently after being let go in 1999, and significant projects after that included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which led to an display launched in London – where he gave a private viewing to Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a emotional book, Remembered.

Early Life and Start

Harris was born in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later assisted him construct a darkroom in the garage. In the 1950s, the family moved farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended Chase Cross secondary modern school, learning practical skills in carpentry and metalwork, before departing at 16.

At a central London agency, he rose rapidly from messenger boy to photographer, and launched his professional career at eastern London local papers before moving on to major publications.

Colleagues and Impact

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

Private World

In 2001 Harris made contact through a website with Nikki, whom he had initially encountered as a three-year-old in primary school, and they became close companions through his final decades. After learning of his illness, they went on a road trip in Europe, posting sunny images of good meals and good wine, and revisiting significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a few weeks before his death, was to donate his vast archive of five decades of work to a long-term repository. Among his favourite historical photos he commented on a very young Harris drinking 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 married 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.