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The photojournalist B. Harris, who has died aged 73 from cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to become a messenger boy, and eventually became among the most esteemed British photojournalists of his era.

A Global Career

He travelled the world as a independent or a staffer for major British publications, covering major happenings including the fall of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkans and across Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands conflict and several US election campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic landscapes of the rural areas around his Essex home.

According to his estimates he took over 2m photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He kept sharing historical and recent images daily on social media until a few weeks before his passing, and had been planning to deliver a lecture on his career and experiences.

Memorable Projects

Tales from a turbulent career included an costly premium flight in 1991 to reach the funeral in India of the assassinated leader 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 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 regularly reproduced as a striking example of photo-opportunity hubris. His 2016’s 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 was appointed as 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 nearly a decade, including coverage of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he considered censorship of his strongest images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was put together to create a major newspaper. He was instrumental in shaping the style of editorial photography that the paper was famous for, helping raise the bar for news photography and newspaper design, in striking images covering multiple pages. Among numerous awards, he was named the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc recording 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 war memorial organisation, which resulted in an display launched in London – where he gave a personal tour to Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a emotional book, Remembered.

Early Life and Start

Harris was raised 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 moved eastwards – and to a better area – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended Chase Cross secondary modern school, acquiring practical skills in woodwork and metal crafting, before leaving at 16.

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

Colleagues and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as astonishing. Nick Turpin, who worked 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 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 primary school, and they became close companions through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, sharing sunny images of fine dining and quality drinks, and returning to important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, finished a short time before his demise, was to transfer his vast archive of five decades of work to a permanent home. Among his preferred historical photos he commented on a very young Harris consuming generous servings of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a fortunate life I’ve had – no regrets and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was married twice, both marriages ended in divorce.

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