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The photojournalist B. Harris, who has died aged 73 of cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and eventually became among the most esteemed UK photojournalists of his generation.

A Global Career

He journeyed the world as a freelance or a staffer for major British publications, documenting such events as 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 war and four US election campaigns. He also created lyrical scenic views of the countryside around his Essex home.

By his own calculation he shot over 2m images, taking an average of 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He kept sharing historical and recent images daily on social media up to a few weeks before his passing, and had been planning to deliver a lecture on his life and work.

Notable Projects

Tales from a turbulent career featured an costly premium flight in 1991 to reach the funeral in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed from sunstroke and pneumonia and was cooled down 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 front page, and are regularly reproduced as a hideous example of staged photo hubris. His 2016 memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, took the title from an irritated John Major striking him with a folded briefing paper.

Career Highlights

He became the a major newspaper’s youngest ever 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 saw as editing of his strongest images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was assembled to create a major newspaper. He played a key role in shaping the style of editorial photography that the paper became known for, helping set new standards for news photography and newspaper 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 eastern Europe recording the collapse of communism.

He operated independently after being made redundant in 1999, and significant projects thereafter included a year spent capturing 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 the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Early Life and Start

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 1950s, the family relocated farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to a local secondary modern school, acquiring useful skills in carpentry and metal crafting, before leaving at 16.

At a Fleet Street agency, he quickly advanced from messenger boy to photographer, and began his working life at eastern London local papers before moving on to national publications.

Peers and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often outpaced by him, recalled 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 generation of junior colleagues. Tim Dawson, a union representative, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a online service with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had first met as a three-year-old in primary school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After learning of his illness, they went on a road trip in Europe, posting bright images of good meals and good wine, and revisiting significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a few weeks before his death, was to transfer his vast archive of five decades of work to a permanent home. Among his preferred archive images he reflected on a very young Harris consuming generous servings of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a blessed life I’ve had – no remorse and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was wed twice, both marriages concluded with divorce.

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