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

A Global Professional Journey

He travelled the world as a independent or a employee for major British publications, documenting such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkans and across Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands war and four US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic scenic views of the rural areas around his Essex home.

By his own calculation he shot over 2m photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he stated that figure several years ago. He kept sharing historical and new images daily on social media until a short time before his passing, and had been planning to give a talk on his life and work.

Memorable Projects

Tales from a rollercoaster career featured an expenses-shredding premium flight in 1991 to attend the burial in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed from sunstroke and pneumonia and was treated 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, toppling into the tide on Brighton beach were carried across multiple columns of a leading page, and are often reprinted as a hideous 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 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 almost ten years, including coverage of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he considered censorship of his most powerful images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was assembled to launch a major newspaper. He was instrumental in forming the style of journalistic photography that the paper was famous for, helping raise the bar for press images and broadsheet design, in striking 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 eastern Europe recording the collapse of communism.

He operated independently after being let go in 1999, and major projects thereafter included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which led to an display launched in London – where he gave a personal tour to the Queen 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 helped his son construct 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 a local secondary modern school, learning practical skills in woodwork and metalwork, before departing at 16.

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

Colleagues and Impact

Other photographers, often outpaced by him, recalled his work as astonishing. A colleague, who collaborated with him in the early days, described him as “a superb and fearless photographer”, an influence to a cohort of junior colleagues. Another associate, a freelance organiser, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris made contact through a online service with Nikki, whom he had initially encountered as a three-year-old in infant school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they went on a driving tour in Europe, sharing sunny images of fine dining and good wine, and revisiting significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a few weeks before his death, was to transfer his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a permanent home. Among his favourite historical photos he commented on a youthful Harris consuming 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 wed twice, each union concluded with divorce.

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