Brian Harris Life Story: An Existence Through the Lens

The photojournalist B. Harris, who has died aged 73 of cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and went on to become one of the most respected UK photojournalists of his era.

A Global Career

He travelled the world as a independent or a employee for Fleet Street titles, covering such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkans and across Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands war and four US election campaigns. Additionally, he produced lyrical scenic views of the countryside around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he took over two million images, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He continued posting archive and new images each day on online platforms up to a short time before his passing, and had been arranging to give a talk on his life and work.

Memorable Assignments

Tales from a rollercoaster career included an costly business class flight in 1991 to reach the funeral in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed 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 published across multiple columns of a leading page, and are often reprinted as a striking example of photo-opportunity hubris. His 2016 memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, was named after an irritated John Major striking him with a folded briefing paper.

Professional Highlights

He became the Times’ most youthful staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and worked around the world for almost ten years, including coverage of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he considered editing of his strongest images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was assembled to create a major newspaper. He was instrumental in shaping the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping raise the bar for press images and newspaper design, in dramatic images covering multiple pages. Among many awards, he was named the What the Papers Say photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe recording the fall of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being let go in 1999, and major projects thereafter included a year spent photographing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which led to an exhibition launched in London – where he gave a private viewing to Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a emotional book, Remembered.

Early Life and Beginnings

Harris was born in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later helped his son build a photo lab in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family relocated 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 woodwork and metalwork, before departing at 16.

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

Colleagues and Legacy

Other photographers, often scooped by him, remembered his work as astonishing. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the initial stages, described him as “a great and brave photographer”, an inspiration to a cohort of young colleagues. Another associate, a freelance organiser, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris made contact through a online service 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 quality drinks, and returning to important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, finished a few weeks before his death, was to donate his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his preferred historical photos he reflected on a very young Harris drinking 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 wed twice, both marriages ended in divorce.

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