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The photojournalist Brian Harris, who has died at the age of 73 of cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and went on to become among the most esteemed UK documentary photographers of his era.

A Global Professional Journey

He journeyed across the globe as a independent or a employee for Fleet Street publications, covering major happenings including the fall of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkans and across Africa, the consequences of the Falklands war and four US election campaigns. He also created poetic landscapes of the countryside around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he took over two million images, taking an average of 100 a day, but he stated that figure some years back. He kept sharing historical and recent images each day on social media until a short time before his passing, and had been planning to deliver a lecture on his career and experiences.

Notable Assignments

Stories from a turbulent career included an costly business class flight in 1991 to reach the burial in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed 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, falling into the sea on Brighton beach were carried across multiple columns of a leading page, and are often reprinted as a hideous example of photo-opportunity hubris. His 2016’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, took the title from an exasperated John Major hitting him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Professional Milestones

He became 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 later stepped down over what he saw as editing 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 shaping the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping raise the bar for press images and broadsheet design, in striking images filling front and back pages. Among many awards, he was honoured as the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc documenting the collapse of communism.

He operated independently after being let go in 1999, and major projects after that 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 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 construct a darkroom in the garage. In the 1950s, the family moved eastwards – and to a better area – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to a local secondary modern school, learning useful skills in carpentry and metal crafting, before departing at 16.

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

Colleagues and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often scooped by him, remembered his work as remarkable. A colleague, who worked with him in the initial stages, described him as “a superb and brave photographer”, an inspiration to a generation of junior colleagues. Another associate, a freelance organiser, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a online service with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had first met as a three-year-old in infant school, and they became inseparable partners through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they embarked on a road trip in Europe, posting sunny images of fine dining and good wine, and revisiting important 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 long-term repository. Among his preferred historical photos he reflected on a youthful Harris drinking large glasses of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a fortunate life I’ve had – no remorse and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was wed twice, both marriages concluded with divorce.

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