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The photojournalist B. Harris, who passed away at the age of 73 from cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to become a messenger boy, and eventually became one of the most respected UK documentary photographers of his era.

A Global Professional Journey

He journeyed the world as a independent or a staffer for Fleet Street publications, covering major happenings including 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 conflict and four US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced lyrical landscapes of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he shot more than 2m images, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He continued posting historical and new images daily on online platforms up to a short time before his death, and had been planning to give a talk on his career and experiences.

Memorable Projects

Stories from a rollercoaster career featured an costly premium flight in 1991 to reach the funeral in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from heatstroke 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 tide on Brighton beach were published across eight columns of a front page, and are regularly reproduced as a striking example of staged photo hubris. His 2016 memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, took the title from an exasperated John Major striking him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Career Milestones

He was appointed as the Times’ youngest ever 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 later stepped down over what he saw as censorship of his strongest 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 journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping raise the bar for press images and newspaper design, in striking images filling 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 eastern Europe documenting the collapse of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being let go 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 display launched in London – where he gave a personal tour to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Early Life and Start

Harris was raised in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later assisted him construct a photo lab in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family moved farther east – and up in the world – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended Chase Cross secondary modern school, acquiring useful skills in woodwork and metal crafting, before leaving at 16.

At a Fleet Street agency, he rose rapidly 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, remembered his work as remarkable. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the initial stages, called him “a great and fearless photographer”, an influence to a generation of young colleagues. Another associate, a union representative, said he “transformed 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 toddler in infant school, and they became close companions through his remaining years. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, posting bright images of fine dining and quality drinks, and revisiting significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, completed a few weeks before his death, was to transfer his extensive collection of 55 years’ work to a permanent home. Among his preferred historical photos he commented on a youthful Harris drinking 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, each union ended in divorce.

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