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The photojournalist B. Harris, who has died aged 73 of cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and eventually became among the most esteemed UK photojournalists of his generation.

An International Career

He travelled across the globe as a freelance or a employee for Fleet Street publications, covering such events as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkan region and across Africa, the consequences of the Falklands war and four US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced lyrical scenic views of the rural areas around his Essex home.

By his own calculation he took over two million images, taking an average of 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He kept sharing archive and new images daily on online platforms up to a few weeks before his passing, and had been planning to deliver a lecture on his life and work.

Memorable Projects

Stories from a turbulent career included an costly premium flight in 1991 to attend the burial in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed from heatstroke and pneumonia and was cooled down with ice that had been employed to cool the body.

His 1983’s images of the at that time Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, falling into the sea on Brighton beach were published across multiple columns of a front 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.

Career Milestones

He was appointed as the Times’ most youthful staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and was based around the world for almost ten years, including coverage of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he saw as editing of his strongest images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was assembled to launch a major newspaper. He played a key role in shaping the style of journalistic photography that the paper was famous for, helping raise the bar for press images and broadsheet design, in striking images filling front and back pages. Among numerous awards, he was honoured as the What the Papers Say photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc recording the fall of communism.

He operated independently after being made redundant 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 resulted in an exhibition launched in London – where he gave a personal tour to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a emotional book, Remembered.

Early Life and Start

Harris was born in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later assisted him construct a photo lab in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family relocated eastwards – and to a better area – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended a local secondary modern school, learning useful skills in carpentry and metalwork, before leaving at 16.

At a central London photo agency, he quickly advanced from delivery boy to photographer, and began his working life at east London local papers before moving on to major publications.

Colleagues and Impact

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

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a online service with Nikki, whom he had initially encountered as a toddler in infant school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After learning of his illness, they went on a road trip in Europe, sharing sunny images of fine dining and good wine, and returning to important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, finished 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 reflected 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.