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The photojournalist B. Harris, who has died aged 73 from cancer, left school at 16 to become a messenger boy, and eventually became among the most esteemed UK photojournalists of his era.

A Global Professional Journey

He journeyed the world as a freelance or a employee for major British titles, documenting such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkans and across Africa, the consequences of the Falklands war and four US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic landscapes of the countryside around his Essex home.

According to his estimates he took more than two million images, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He kept sharing historical and recent images each day on social media until a short time before his death, and had been planning to give a talk on his career and experiences.

Notable Assignments

Tales from a turbulent career featured an costly business class flight in 1991 to reach the funeral in India of the slain politician 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 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 leading page, and are regularly reproduced as a hideous example of photo-opportunity hubris. His 2016 memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, was named after an irritated John Major hitting him with a folded briefing paper.

Professional Milestones

He was appointed as the a major newspaper’s 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 civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down 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 was famous for, helping raise the bar for news photography and broadsheet design, in striking images covering front and back pages. Among many awards, he was named the What the Papers Say photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc recording the collapse of communism.

He worked as a freelance 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 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 Start

Harris was born 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 up in the world – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended Chase Cross secondary modern school, learning practical skills in carpentry and metalwork, before leaving at 16.

At a central London agency, he quickly advanced from messenger boy to photographer, and launched his working life at eastern London local papers before moving on to major publications.

Peers and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often outpaced by him, recalled his work as remarkable. A colleague, who collaborated with him in the early days, called him “a superb and fearless photographer”, an inspiration to a generation of young colleagues. Tim Dawson, a union representative, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris made contact through a online service with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had initially encountered as a toddler in primary school, and they became close companions through his remaining years. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they embarked on a road trip in Europe, sharing bright images of good meals and good wine, and revisiting significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, finished a short time before his demise, was to transfer his extensive collection of five decades of work to a permanent home. Among his favourite historical photos he reflected on a very young Harris drinking large glasses of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a fortunate life I’ve had – no regrets and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was wed twice, both marriages concluded with divorce.

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