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The photographer Brian Harris, who has died at the age of 73 of cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, 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 titles, documenting major happenings including the collapse of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkans and across Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands conflict and several US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic scenic views of the countryside around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he shot more than 2m images, averaging 100 a day, but he stated that figure some years back. He continued posting historical and recent images daily on social media until a few weeks before his passing, and had been planning to give a talk on his life and work.

Notable Projects

Stories from a rollercoaster career featured an costly premium flight in 1991 to reach the burial 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’s images of the then Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, toppling into the sea on Brighton beach were published across eight columns of a front page, and are regularly reproduced 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 hitting him with a folded briefing paper.

Career Highlights

He was appointed as the a major newspaper’s youngest ever staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and was based around the world for nearly a decade, including reporting of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he considered censorship of his most powerful images of starvation 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 became known for, helping raise the bar for news photography and broadsheet design, in dramatic images covering 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 the former Eastern Bloc documenting 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 private viewing to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a emotional book, Remembered.

Background and Start

Harris was raised in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later assisted him construct a photo lab in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family relocated farther east – and up in the world – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to Chase Cross secondary modern school, learning useful skills in woodwork 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 national publications.

Peers and Impact

Other photographers, often outpaced by him, remembered his work as remarkable. A colleague, who collaborated with him in the early days, described him as “a superb and brave photographer”, an inspiration to a generation of young colleagues. Tim Dawson, a freelance organiser, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki, whom he had initially encountered as a toddler in infant school, and they became inseparable partners through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they went on a driving tour in Europe, sharing sunny images of fine dining and good wine, and returning to important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, finished a few weeks before his demise, was to transfer his extensive collection of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his favourite archive images 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 concluded with divorce.

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