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The photojournalist Brian Harris, who has died at the age of 73 from cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to become a messenger boy, and went on to become one of the most respected British photojournalists of his generation.

An International Career

He journeyed the world as a independent or a staffer for Fleet Street titles, covering major happenings including the collapse of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkan region and across Africa, the consequences of the Falklands conflict and four US election campaigns. He also created lyrical landscapes of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

By his own calculation he shot over two million images, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He kept sharing archive and new images each day on online platforms until a few weeks before his death, and had been planning to deliver a lecture on his life and work.

Memorable Projects

Tales from a rollercoaster career included an expenses-shredding premium flight in 1991 to reach the burial in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from heatstroke and pneumonia and was treated with ice that had been employed to cool the body.

His 1983’s images of the then Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, toppling into the tide on Brighton beach were published across eight columns of a front page, and are often reprinted as a hideous example of photo-opportunity hubris. His 2016’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, was named after an irritated 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 worked around the world for almost ten years, including coverage of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he saw as censorship of his strongest images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was assembled to create a new newspaper. He was instrumental in forming the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping raise the bar for news photography and broadsheet design, in dramatic images filling multiple pages. Among many awards, he was named the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc recording the fall of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being let go in 1999, and significant projects after that included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which resulted in an exhibition launched in London – where he gave a personal tour to Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Background and Beginnings

Harris was born in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later assisted him construct a darkroom in the garage. In the 1950s, the family relocated farther east – and up in the world – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended a local secondary modern school, acquiring useful skills in woodwork and metal crafting, before departing at 16.

At a Fleet Street agency, he quickly advanced from messenger boy to photographer, and began his professional career at east London local papers before progressing to national publications.

Peers and Impact

Other photographers, often scooped by him, remembered his work as remarkable. A colleague, who worked with him in the initial stages, described him as “a great and fearless photographer”, an inspiration to a generation of junior colleagues. Tim Dawson, a union representative, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a online service with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had initially encountered as a three-year-old in primary school, and they became close companions through his final decades. After learning of his illness, they went 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 last task, completed a few weeks before his demise, was to donate his extensive collection of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his preferred archive images he reflected on a very young 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, 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.