Esteemed Photographer Brian Harris Obituary: A Life Through the Lens

The photographer B. Harris, who has died aged 73 from cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to become a messenger boy, and eventually became one of the most respected British photojournalists of his generation.

An International Professional Journey

He travelled across the globe as a independent or a staffer for Fleet Street publications, documenting such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkans and throughout Africa, the consequences of the Falklands war and several US presidential campaigns. He also created poetic landscapes of the countryside around his Essex home.

By his own calculation he took more than two million images, averaging 100 a day, but he stated that figure several years ago. He kept sharing archive and new images each day on online platforms 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 costly premium flight in 1991 to reach the burial in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted 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 published across multiple columns of a front page, and are regularly reproduced as a hideous example of photo-opportunity 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 Highlights

He was appointed as the a major newspaper’s most youthful 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 eventually resigned over what he considered editing of his most powerful images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was assembled to launch a new newspaper. He was instrumental in forming the style of editorial photography that the paper became known for, helping set new standards for press images and broadsheet design, in dramatic images filling front and back 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 made redundant in 1999, and major projects after that included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, 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 Beginnings

Harris was born in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later assisted him construct a darkroom in the garage. In the 1950s, the family moved farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended Chase Cross secondary modern school, learning useful skills in woodwork and metalwork, before leaving at 16.

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

Colleagues and Impact

Other photographers, often outpaced by him, recalled his work as remarkable. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the initial stages, described him as “a great and fearless photographer”, an influence to a cohort of junior colleagues. Another associate, a freelance organiser, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris made contact through a online service with Nikki, whom he had initially encountered as a three-year-old in primary school, and they became inseparable partners through his final decades. After learning of his illness, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, posting sunny images of good meals and good wine, and revisiting significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a short time before his death, was to transfer his extensive collection of five decades of work to a long-term repository. Among his preferred archive images he commented on a very young Harris drinking generous servings 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, each union concluded with divorce.

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