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The photojournalist Brian Harris, who has died at the age of 73 from cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to work as a courier, and went on to become one of the most respected UK documentary photographers of his era.

A Global Career

He journeyed the world as a freelance or a staffer for Fleet Street publications, covering major happenings including the collapse of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkan region and throughout Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands conflict and four US election campaigns. He also created lyrical scenic views of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

By his own calculation he shot more than 2m images, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He continued posting historical and recent images each day on social media until a few weeks before his death, and had been planning to give a talk on his life and work.

Notable Assignments

Tales from a rollercoaster career included an expenses-shredding business class flight in 1991 to reach the burial in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from sunstroke and pneumonia and was treated 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, falling into the sea on Brighton beach were carried across multiple columns of a leading 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 folded briefing paper.

Career Milestones

He was appointed as the Times’ youngest ever 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 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 assembled to create a new newspaper. He played a key role in forming the style of editorial photography that the paper became known for, helping raise the bar for press images and broadsheet design, in dramatic 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 fall of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being made redundant in 1999, and significant projects thereafter included a year spent photographing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which resulted in an display launched in London – where he gave a private viewing to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Background and Start

Harris was born in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later assisted him build a photo lab in the garage. In the 1950s, the family moved eastwards – and to a better area – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to Chase Cross secondary modern school, learning practical skills in woodwork and metal crafting, before leaving at 16.

At a Fleet Street agency, he rose rapidly from delivery boy to photographer, and began his working life at east London local papers before progressing to major publications.

Peers and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as remarkable. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the initial stages, described him as “a great and brave photographer”, an inspiration to a generation of young colleagues. Another associate, a freelance organiser, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris made contact through a website with Nikki, whom he had initially encountered as a toddler in primary school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, sharing bright images of good meals and quality drinks, and returning to important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a few weeks before his demise, was to donate his vast archive of five decades of work to a long-term repository. Among his favourite historical photos he commented on a very young Harris consuming generous servings of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a fortunate life I’ve had – no remorse and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was wed 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.