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The photographer B. Harris, who passed away at the age of 73 of cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and went on to become one of the most respected UK documentary photographers of his generation.

A Global Professional Journey

He journeyed across the globe as a independent or a employee for Fleet Street publications, covering such events as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkans and across Africa, the consequences of the Falklands conflict and four US election campaigns. He also created poetic landscapes of the rural areas around his Essex home.

By his own calculation he took more than 2m photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He continued posting archive and new images daily on online platforms until a few weeks before his death, and had been arranging to give a talk on his career and experiences.

Notable Projects

Stories from a rollercoaster career featured an costly premium flight in 1991 to attend the funeral in India of the slain politician 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, toppling into the tide on Brighton beach were carried across eight columns of a front 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 irritated John Major striking him with a folded briefing paper.

Career Highlights

He became 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 eventually resigned over what he saw as censorship of his most powerful images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was assembled to launch 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 broadsheet design, in dramatic images filling multiple 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 let go in 1999, and significant projects after that included a year spent photographing 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 emotional book, Remembered.

Background and Beginnings

Harris was born in eastern 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 moved eastwards – and to a better area – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended a local secondary modern school, learning useful skills in carpentry and metal crafting, before departing at 16.

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

Colleagues and Impact

Fellow photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as remarkable. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the early days, described him as “a superb and fearless photographer”, an influence to a cohort 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 reconnected through a website with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had initially encountered as a toddler 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, sharing bright images of good meals and good wine, and revisiting significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, completed a short time before his death, was to donate his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his favourite historical photos he reflected on a very young Harris consuming generous servings 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 ended in divorce.

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