Esteemed Photographer Brian Harris Life Story: An Existence Behind the Camera

The photojournalist B. Harris, who passed away aged 73 of cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to become a messenger boy, and went on to become among the most esteemed UK documentary photographers of his era.

A Global Professional Journey

He journeyed the world as a freelance or a staffer for major British publications, covering such events as the fall 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 consequences of the Falklands war and four US election campaigns. Additionally, he produced lyrical scenic views of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

By his own calculation he shot more than two million images, averaging 100 a day, but he stated that figure some years back. He continued posting historical and new images each day on online platforms up to a few weeks before his death, and had been arranging to deliver a lecture on his career and experiences.

Memorable Assignments

Tales from a rollercoaster career featured an expenses-shredding business class flight in 1991 to reach the funeral 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 tide on Brighton beach were published across multiple 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 irritated John Major striking him with a folded briefing paper.

Professional Milestones

He was appointed as the Times’ youngest ever staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and was based around the world for nearly a decade, including reporting of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he saw as editing of his most powerful images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was assembled to create a major 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 broadsheet design, in dramatic images covering front and back pages. Among numerous awards, he was honoured as the What the Papers Say photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc documenting the collapse of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being made redundant in 1999, and significant projects after that included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, which led to an exhibition launched in London – where he gave a private viewing to the Queen 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 technician who later helped his son build a darkroom in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family moved eastwards – and to a better area – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to a local secondary modern school, acquiring useful skills in woodwork and metal crafting, before departing at 16.

At a Fleet Street agency, he quickly advanced from messenger boy to photographer, and launched his professional career at east London local papers before moving on to national publications.

Colleagues and Legacy

Other photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as remarkable. A colleague, who collaborated with him in the early days, called him “a great and fearless photographer”, an influence to a generation of young colleagues. Another associate, a freelance organiser, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris made contact through a online service with Nikki, whom he had first met as a three-year-old in primary school, and they became close companions through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, sharing bright images of good meals and quality drinks, and revisiting significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, finished a short time before his death, was to transfer his extensive collection of five decades of work to a long-term repository. Among his favourite archive images he reflected on a youthful 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, each union ended in divorce.

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