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The photographer Brian Harris, who passed away at the age of 73 from cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to become a messenger boy, and eventually became among the most esteemed British documentary photographers of his era.

A Global Career

He travelled the world as a freelance or a staffer for major British publications, documenting such events as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkans and throughout Africa, the consequences of the Falklands war and several US election campaigns. He also created poetic scenic views of the countryside around his home county of Essex home.

By his own calculation he took over two million photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He continued posting archive and recent images daily on social media up to a short time before his passing, and had been arranging to give a talk on his career and experiences.

Memorable Assignments

Stories from a turbulent career included an costly premium 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 then Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, toppling into the sea on Brighton beach were published across eight columns of a leading page, and are often reprinted as a hideous example of staged photo hubris. His 2016 memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, took the title from an irritated John Major striking him with a folded briefing paper.

Professional Highlights

He was appointed as the a major newspaper’s most youthful staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and worked around the world for nearly a decade, including coverage of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he saw as editing of his strongest images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was put together to launch a new newspaper. He played a key role in forming the style of editorial photography that the paper was famous for, helping set new standards for news photography and broadsheet design, in striking images covering 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 operated independently after being made redundant in 1999, and major projects thereafter included a year spent photographing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which led to an display launched in London – where he gave a personal tour 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 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 Chase Cross secondary modern school, acquiring practical skills in woodwork and metalwork, before leaving at 16.

At a central London agency, he rose rapidly from delivery boy to photographer, and began his working life at east London local papers before moving on to national publications.

Peers and Impact

Fellow photographers, often outpaced by him, recalled his work as astonishing. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the early days, described him as “a great and fearless photographer”, an influence to a generation of junior colleagues. Tim Dawson, a freelance organiser, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a online service with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had first met as a three-year-old in infant school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After learning of his illness, they went on a driving tour in Europe, posting bright images of good meals and good wine, and returning to important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, finished a few weeks before his death, was to donate his vast archive of five decades of work to a long-term repository. Among his preferred historical photos he commented on a youthful Harris drinking large glasses of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a blessed 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 later union, Nikki’s daughter, Holly, and by his sister, Jan.