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

A Global Career

He travelled across the globe as a freelance or a employee for Fleet Street titles, covering such events as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger 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 presidential campaigns. He also created poetic landscapes of the countryside around his Essex home.

By his own calculation he took over two million photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he stated that figure some years back. He kept sharing archive and new images daily on social media until a few weeks before his passing, and had been planning to give a talk on his life and work.

Notable Projects

Stories from a turbulent career included an costly 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 treated with ice that had been used to preserve the body.

His 1983’s images of the then Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, falling into the sea on Brighton beach were published across eight 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, took the title from an exasperated John Major hitting him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Career Highlights

He became the a major newspaper’s most youthful staff photographer when he joined the paper 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 saw as censorship of his most powerful images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was put together to launch a new newspaper. He was instrumental in forming the style of journalistic photography that the paper was famous for, helping set new standards for news photography and broadsheet design, in striking images covering multiple pages. Among numerous awards, he was honoured as the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc recording the collapse of communism.

He operated independently after being let go in 1999, and major projects thereafter included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, 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 Beginnings

Harris was raised in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later assisted him construct a darkroom in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family relocated farther east – and up in the world – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to a local secondary modern school, acquiring useful skills in woodwork and metalwork, before leaving at 16.

At a central London agency, he rose rapidly from delivery boy to photographer, and launched his working life at eastern London local papers before progressing to major publications.

Peers and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as remarkable. A colleague, who worked with him in the early days, described him as “a great and brave photographer”, an influence to a generation of young colleagues. Another associate, a union representative, 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 three-year-old in infant school, and they became inseparable partners through his final decades. After learning of his illness, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, posting bright images of fine dining and quality drinks, and returning to important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, completed a short time before his demise, was to donate his extensive collection of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his preferred historical photos he commented on a very young Harris drinking large glasses of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a fortunate life I’ve had – no remorse and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was married twice, both marriages concluded with divorce.

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