🔗 Share this article

The photojournalist Brian Harris, who passed away aged 73 from cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and went on to become one of the most respected UK photojournalists of his generation.

An International Career

He travelled the world as a freelance or a employee for major British titles, covering such events as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkans and throughout Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands conflict and several US election campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic landscapes of the countryside around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he took over 2m photographs, taking an average of 100 a day, but he stated that figure some years back. He continued posting historical and new images each day on social media up to a few weeks before his passing, and had been planning to give a talk on his career and experiences.

Memorable Projects

Stories 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 fainted from sunstroke and pneumonia and was cooled down with ice that had been employed to cool the body.

His 1983’s images of the at that time Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, toppling into the sea on Brighton beach were published across eight columns of a leading 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 striking him with a folded briefing paper.

Career Highlights

He became the a major newspaper’s youngest ever staff photographer when he joined the paper 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 later stepped down over what he saw as editing of his most powerful images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was put together to create a new newspaper. He played a key role in forming the style of journalistic photography that the paper was famous for, helping set new standards for news photography and broadsheet design, in striking images covering front and back pages. Among many awards, he was honoured as the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe documenting the collapse of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being made redundant in 1999, and major projects after that included a year spent photographing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which resulted in an display 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 Start

Harris was born in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later helped his son build a photo lab in the garage. In the 1950s, the family relocated farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended a local secondary modern school, learning useful skills in woodwork and metalwork, before departing at 16.

At a Fleet Street agency, he rose rapidly from messenger boy to photographer, and launched his professional career at eastern London local papers before moving on to major publications.

Peers and Impact

Other photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as astonishing. A colleague, who collaborated with him in the initial stages, described him as “a superb and brave photographer”, an influence to a cohort of junior colleagues. Another associate, a union representative, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris made contact through a website with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had first met as a three-year-old in infant 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 fine dining and quality drinks, and returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, completed a few weeks before his demise, was to transfer his extensive collection of five decades of work to a permanent home. Among his favourite archive images he reflected on a very young Harris consuming large glasses of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a blessed life I’ve had – no regrets and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was married twice, both marriages concluded with divorce.

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