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The photographer Brian Harris, who has died at the age of 73 from cancer, left school at 16 to become a messenger boy, and eventually became one of the most respected UK photojournalists of his generation.

A Global Professional Journey

He travelled the world as a freelance or a employee for Fleet Street publications, covering major happenings including the collapse of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkans and across Africa, the consequences of the Falklands war and several US election campaigns. Additionally, he produced lyrical landscapes of the countryside around his Essex home.

By his own calculation he took over 2m images, averaging 100 a day, but he stated that figure some years back. He continued posting historical and new images daily on social media up to a short time before his death, and had been planning to give a talk on his life and work.

Memorable Projects

Tales from a rollercoaster career featured an costly business class flight in 1991 to attend the burial in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from sunstroke and pneumonia and was cooled down with ice that had been used to preserve the body.

His 1983’s images of the then Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, falling into the sea on Brighton beach were carried across multiple columns of a front 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 folded briefing paper.

Career Highlights

He was appointed as the Times’ most youthful staff photographer when he joined the paper in 1976, at the age of 26, and was based around the world for almost ten years, including reporting of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he saw as censorship of his most powerful images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was put together to launch a new newspaper. He played a key role in shaping the style of journalistic photography that the paper was famous for, helping set new standards for news photography and broadsheet design, in striking images covering multiple pages. Among numerous awards, he was named the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc recording the collapse of communism.

He operated independently after being made redundant in 1999, and major projects thereafter included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which resulted in 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 born in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician 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 estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to a local secondary modern school, learning useful skills in carpentry and metal crafting, before leaving at 16.

At a Fleet Street photo agency, he quickly advanced from messenger boy to photographer, and began his professional career at east London local papers before moving on to major publications.

Peers and Legacy

Other photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as remarkable. A colleague, who worked with him in the initial stages, called him “a great and fearless photographer”, an influence to a cohort of junior colleagues. Another associate, a union representative, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had initially encountered as a three-year-old in primary school, and they became close companions through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they embarked on a road trip in Europe, posting sunny images of fine dining and quality drinks, and revisiting important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a short time before his demise, was to donate his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a permanent home. Among his preferred archive images he commented on a youthful Harris consuming large glasses 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, both marriages ended in divorce.

He is remembered by Nikki, his son Jacob, from his later union, Nikki’s daughter, Holly, and by his sister, Jan.