🔗 Share this article

The photojournalist Brian Harris, who passed away aged 73 of cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to become a messenger boy, and went on to become among the most esteemed British documentary photographers of his generation.

A Global Professional Journey

He journeyed the world as a independent or a employee for Fleet Street titles, covering major happenings including the collapse of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkans and throughout Africa, the consequences of the Falklands war and several US election campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic landscapes of the rural areas around his Essex home.

By his own calculation he shot more than two million photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he stated that figure some years back. He continued posting archive and new images each day on online platforms until a short time before his death, and had been planning to give a talk on his life and work.

Memorable Assignments

Stories from a rollercoaster career included an expenses-shredding 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 treated with ice that had been used to preserve the body.

His 1983 images of the at that time 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 hideous example of staged photo hubris. His 2016’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, was named after an irritated John Major hitting him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Career 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 coverage of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he saw as 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 shaping the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping raise the bar for news photography and broadsheet design, in striking images covering front and back pages. Among many 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 operated independently 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 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 electrician who later helped his son construct a darkroom in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family moved farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended Chase Cross secondary modern school, learning practical skills in carpentry and metalwork, before departing at 16.

At a Fleet Street photo agency, he quickly advanced from messenger boy to photographer, and launched his working life at east London local papers before progressing to national publications.

Colleagues and Legacy

Other photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as astonishing. A colleague, who collaborated with him in the early days, described him as “a great and brave photographer”, an influence to a cohort of junior colleagues. Tim Dawson, a union representative, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki, whom he had initially encountered as a toddler in primary school, and they became close companions through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, posting bright images of good meals and good wine, and returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a short time before his death, was to transfer 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, 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.