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The photojournalist B. Harris, who passed away at the age of 73 from cancer, left school at 16 to become a messenger boy, and went on to become among the most esteemed UK documentary photographers of his era.

A Global Professional Journey

He travelled the world as a freelance or a employee for Fleet Street publications, documenting such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkans and throughout Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands war and several US election campaigns. He also created lyrical scenic views of the rural areas around his 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 several years ago. He continued posting archive and new images daily on social media up to a short time before his passing, and had been planning to give a talk on his career and experiences.

Notable Projects

Tales from a rollercoaster career featured an costly business class flight in 1991 to reach 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’s images of the then Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, toppling into the sea on Brighton beach were published across multiple columns of a front page, and are often reprinted as a striking example of staged photo hubris. His 2016’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, was named after an exasperated John Major striking him with a folded briefing paper.

Career Highlights

He was appointed as the a major newspaper’s most youthful staff photographer when he joined the paper in 1976, at the age of 26, and was based around the world for nearly a decade, including reporting of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down 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 assembled to create a new newspaper. He was instrumental in shaping the style of journalistic photography that the paper was famous for, helping raise the bar for news photography and broadsheet design, in striking images filling front and back pages. Among numerous 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 fall of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being made redundant in 1999, and major projects thereafter included a year spent photographing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, which led to an display launched in London – where he gave a personal tour to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Early Life and Start

Harris was raised in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later helped his son construct a photo lab in the garage. In the 1950s, the family relocated farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to a local secondary modern school, acquiring practical skills in woodwork and metalwork, before leaving at 16.

At a central London agency, he quickly advanced from messenger boy to photographer, and launched his working life at eastern London local papers before moving on to national publications.

Peers and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often scooped by him, remembered his work as astonishing. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the initial stages, called him “a great and brave photographer”, an inspiration to a cohort of junior colleagues. Tim Dawson, a union representative, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris made contact through a website with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had initially encountered as a three-year-old in infant school, and they became inseparable partners through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they embarked on a road trip in Europe, sharing sunny images of good meals and quality drinks, and returning to important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, finished a few weeks before his demise, was to transfer his vast archive of five decades of work to a permanent home. Among his preferred historical photos he commented on a very young Harris drinking 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 ended in divorce.

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