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The photojournalist B. Harris, who passed away aged 73 from cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and eventually became one of the most respected British photojournalists of his era.

A Global Career

He travelled the world as a independent or a staffer for major British publications, documenting major happenings including the fall of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkan region and across Africa, the consequences of the Falklands conflict and four US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic scenic views of the countryside around his Essex home.

By his own calculation he took more than two million photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He kept sharing archive and new images daily on online platforms until a short time before his passing, and had been planning to deliver a lecture on his career and experiences.

Memorable Projects

Stories from a rollercoaster career featured an expenses-shredding business class flight in 1991 to reach the burial in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted 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 front page, and are regularly reproduced 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 hitting him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Career Highlights

He became the Times’ most youthful staff photographer when he joined the paper in 1976, at the age of 26, and worked around the world for almost ten years, including reporting of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he considered censorship 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 journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping set new standards for news photography and newspaper design, in striking images covering front and back pages. Among numerous awards, he was named the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe documenting the collapse 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 war memorial organisation, 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 moving book, Remembered.

Background and Beginnings

Harris was raised in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later helped his son construct a photo lab 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 Chase Cross 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 progressing to major publications.

Peers and Legacy

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 influence to a cohort of junior colleagues. Another associate, a freelance organiser, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki, whom he had first met 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, posting bright images of good meals and quality drinks, and returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, finished a short time before his demise, was to transfer his vast archive of five decades of work to a permanent home. Among his preferred archive images he reflected on a very young Harris drinking generous servings of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a blessed life I’ve had – no regrets and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was married twice, each union ended in divorce.

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