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The photojournalist B. Harris, who has died at the age of 73 of cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and eventually became among the most esteemed UK photojournalists of his era.

A Global Career

He travelled the world as a freelance or a staffer for major British 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 throughout Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands conflict and four US election campaigns. He also created poetic landscapes of the rural areas around his Essex home.

According to his estimates he took over two million photographs, taking an average of 100 a day, but he stated that figure several years ago. He continued posting historical and new images each day on social media until a short time before his death, and had been planning to deliver a lecture on his career and experiences.

Memorable Assignments

Stories from a turbulent career featured an expenses-shredding business class flight in 1991 to reach the funeral in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed from heatstroke and pneumonia and was treated with ice that had been used to preserve the body.

His 1983 images of the at that time Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, toppling into the tide on Brighton beach were published across eight 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 irritated John Major hitting him with a folded briefing paper.

Career Highlights

He became the Times’ most youthful staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and worked around the world for almost ten years, including reporting of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he considered censorship of his strongest 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 press images and newspaper design, in dramatic images covering front and back pages. Among numerous 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 made redundant in 1999, and major projects after that included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, which led to an display launched in London – where he gave a personal tour to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Background and Beginnings

Harris was raised in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later assisted him build a darkroom in the garage. In the 1950s, the family relocated eastwards – and up in the world – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to Chase Cross secondary modern school, learning practical skills in carpentry and metal crafting, before leaving at 16.

At a central London photo agency, he rose rapidly from delivery boy to photographer, and began his working life at eastern London local papers before progressing to major publications.

Peers and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often scooped by him, remembered his work as astonishing. Nick Turpin, who worked with him in the early days, described him as “a great and brave photographer”, an influence to a generation of junior colleagues. Tim Dawson, a union representative, said he “reimagined 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 initially encountered as a toddler in primary school, and they became close companions through his remaining years. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they went on a road trip in Europe, posting bright images of fine dining and good wine, and revisiting significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, completed a few weeks before his demise, was to donate his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his preferred archive images he reflected on a very young Harris drinking 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 survived by Nikki, his son Jacob, from his second marriage, Nikki’s daughter, Holly, and by his sister, Jan.