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

An International Professional Journey

He travelled across the globe as a independent or a staffer for Fleet Street titles, covering such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkans and throughout Africa, the consequences of the Falklands war and four US election campaigns. He also created lyrical landscapes of the countryside around his Essex home.

By his own calculation he took more than 2m images, taking an average of 100 a day, but he stated that figure some years back. He kept sharing historical and recent images daily on social media up to a few weeks before his death, and had been planning to give a talk on his life and work.

Memorable Assignments

Tales from a turbulent career included an expenses-shredding 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 employed to cool the body.

His 1983’s 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 leading page, and are regularly reproduced as a hideous example of staged photo hubris. His 2016’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, was named after an exasperated John Major hitting him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Career Milestones

He was appointed as the a major newspaper’s most youthful staff photographer when he joined the paper in 1976, at the age of 26, and was based around the world for almost ten years, including reporting of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he considered censorship of his strongest images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was put together to create a major newspaper. He was instrumental in forming the style of editorial photography that the paper was famous for, helping raise the bar for news photography and newspaper design, in dramatic images covering multiple pages. Among many awards, he was honoured as the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe recording the fall of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being made redundant 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 personal tour to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a emotional book, Remembered.

Background and Start

Harris was born in east 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 relocated eastwards – and to a better area – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to a local secondary modern school, learning useful skills in woodwork and metal crafting, before departing at 16.

At a Fleet Street photo agency, he rose rapidly from messenger boy to photographer, and began his professional career at eastern London local papers before progressing to national publications.

Peers and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often outpaced by him, remembered his work as astonishing. Nick Turpin, who worked with him in the initial stages, called him “a great and brave photographer”, an inspiration to a generation of junior colleagues. Tim Dawson, a freelance organiser, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Private World

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 close companions through his remaining years. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they went on a road trip in Europe, posting bright images of fine dining and good wine, and returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a few weeks before his demise, was to donate his extensive collection of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his preferred archive images he commented on a youthful 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 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.