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The photographer B. Harris, who passed away aged 73 from cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and eventually became among the most esteemed UK documentary photographers of his era.

A Global Career

He travelled across the globe as a independent or a staffer for Fleet Street titles, documenting major happenings including the collapse of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkan region and throughout Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands conflict and several US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic landscapes of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

By his own calculation he shot more than 2m images, taking an average of 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He continued posting archive and new images daily on online platforms until a short time before his death, and had been arranging to deliver a lecture on his career and experiences.

Memorable Assignments

Tales from a turbulent career included an costly premium flight in 1991 to reach the burial in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed from sunstroke and pneumonia and was treated 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 carried across multiple columns of a leading page, and are regularly reproduced 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 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 worked around the world for almost ten years, 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 starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was assembled to launch a major newspaper. He was instrumental in shaping the style of journalistic 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 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 made redundant in 1999, and significant projects thereafter included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, which led to an exhibition launched in London – where he gave a private viewing to Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a emotional book, Remembered.

Early Life and Beginnings

Harris was born in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later assisted him construct a darkroom in the garage. In the 1950s, the family relocated eastwards – and to a better area – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to Chase Cross secondary modern school, learning useful skills in carpentry and metal crafting, before departing at 16.

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

Colleagues and Legacy

Other photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as remarkable. A colleague, who collaborated with him in the early days, described him as “a superb and brave photographer”, an influence to a generation of young colleagues. Another associate, a freelance organiser, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris made contact through a website with Nikki, whom he had first met as a toddler in primary school, and they became inseparable partners through his final decades. 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 important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, completed a few weeks before his demise, was to donate his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his preferred historical photos he commented on a youthful Harris consuming large glasses 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, 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.