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The photographer Brian Harris, who has died 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 generation.

A Global Career

He travelled the world as a independent or a employee for Fleet Street titles, documenting major happenings including the fall of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkan region and across Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands war and four US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic landscapes of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he took over two million photographs, taking an average of 100 a day, but he stated that figure several years ago. He kept sharing historical and recent images daily on social media until a short time before his death, and had been arranging to deliver a lecture on his career and experiences.

Notable Assignments

Tales 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 collapsed from heatstroke and pneumonia and was cooled down with ice that had been employed to cool the body.

His 1983 images of the at that time 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 regularly reproduced as a striking example of photo-opportunity hubris. His 2016’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, took the title from an exasperated John Major striking 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 worked around the world for nearly a decade, including reporting of the end of the civil war 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 put together to create a new newspaper. He played a key role in forming the style of journalistic photography that the paper was famous for, helping raise the bar for news photography and broadsheet design, in striking images covering front and back pages. Among many awards, he was named the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc documenting the fall of communism.

He operated independently after being let go 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 private viewing 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 technician who later helped his son build a darkroom in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family relocated eastwards – 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 woodwork and metal crafting, before departing at 16.

At a central London agency, he rose rapidly from messenger boy to photographer, and launched his professional career at eastern London local papers before moving on to major publications.

Colleagues and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as astonishing. A colleague, who worked with him in the initial stages, called him “a superb and brave photographer”, an inspiration to a generation of young colleagues. Tim Dawson, a union representative, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had initially encountered as a toddler in primary school, and they became close companions through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they went on a driving tour in Europe, posting sunny images of fine dining and good wine, and returning to important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, finished a few weeks before his demise, was to donate his extensive collection of 55 years’ work to a permanent home. Among his preferred archive images he reflected on a very young Harris consuming large glasses 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, both marriages ended in divorce.

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