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

A Global Career

He travelled the world as a independent or a employee for major British titles, documenting such events as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkan region and throughout Africa, the consequences of the Falklands war and several US presidential campaigns. He also created lyrical landscapes of the countryside around his Essex home.

According to his estimates he took more than 2m photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he stated that figure some years back. He continued posting archive and new images each day on online platforms until a few weeks before his passing, and had been planning to deliver a lecture on his career and experiences.

Notable Assignments

Stories from a rollercoaster career included an expenses-shredding premium flight in 1991 to reach the burial in India of the assassinated leader 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 tide on Brighton beach were carried across eight columns of a leading page, and are often reprinted as a hideous example of photo-opportunity hubris. His 2016’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, took the title from an irritated John Major striking him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Professional 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 reporting of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he considered editing of his most powerful images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was put together to launch a major newspaper. He was instrumental in shaping the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping raise the bar for press images and newspaper design, in dramatic images filling multiple 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 worked as a freelance after being made redundant in 1999, and significant projects thereafter included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, 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.

Background and Start

Harris was born in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later assisted him build a photo lab in the garage. In the 1950s, the family moved farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended a local secondary modern school, acquiring practical skills in carpentry and metal crafting, before departing at 16.

At a Fleet Street photo agency, he rose rapidly from messenger boy to photographer, and launched his professional career at eastern London local papers before progressing to national publications.

Peers and Impact

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

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki, whom he had first met as a three-year-old in primary school, and they became inseparable partners through his final decades. After learning of his illness, they went on a driving tour in Europe, sharing sunny images of fine dining and good wine, and revisiting significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, finished a few weeks before his demise, was to donate his vast archive of five decades of 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 fortunate life I’ve had – no remorse and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was wed twice, both marriages ended in divorce.

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