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The photojournalist B. Harris, who has died at the age of 73 from cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to become a messenger boy, and eventually became one of the most respected UK photojournalists of his era.

A Global Professional Journey

He travelled across the globe as a freelance or a employee for major British publications, documenting such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkan region and throughout Africa, the consequences of the Falklands conflict and four US election campaigns. Additionally, he produced lyrical landscapes of the countryside around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he shot over 2m photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He kept sharing historical and recent images daily on online platforms until a short time before his passing, 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 attend the funeral 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 at that time Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, toppling into the tide on Brighton beach were carried across multiple columns of a front page, and are often reprinted as a striking example of staged photo 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 Times’ youngest ever staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and was based around the world for almost ten years, including coverage 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 starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was assembled to create a major newspaper. He was instrumental in forming the style of editorial photography that the paper became known for, helping set new standards for news photography and broadsheet design, in dramatic images filling front and back pages. Among numerous awards, he was honoured as the What the Papers Say 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 significant projects thereafter 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 the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a emotional book, Remembered.

Early Life and Start

Harris was raised in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later assisted him construct a photo lab in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family moved eastwards – and up in the world – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended Chase Cross secondary modern school, learning practical skills in carpentry and metalwork, before leaving at 16.

At a central London photo agency, he quickly advanced from messenger boy to photographer, and launched his working life at eastern London local papers before progressing to major publications.

Colleagues and Legacy

Other photographers, often outpaced by him, recalled his work as astonishing. Nick Turpin, who worked with him in the initial stages, described him as “a great and fearless photographer”, an inspiration to a cohort 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 reconnected through a website with Nikki, whom he had first met as a three-year-old in infant school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, posting bright images of fine dining and good wine, and returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, finished a few weeks before his death, was to transfer his extensive collection of five decades of work to a long-term repository. Among his favourite historical photos he reflected on a youthful Harris drinking generous servings 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.