🔗 Share this article

The photojournalist B. Harris, who has died aged 73 from cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to work as a courier, and eventually became one of the most respected British documentary photographers of his generation.

An International Professional Journey

He travelled across the globe as a freelance or a staffer for Fleet Street titles, covering such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkans and throughout Africa, the consequences of the Falklands conflict and four US presidential campaigns. He also created lyrical landscapes of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

By his own calculation he took over two million photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he stated that figure some years back. He kept sharing historical and new images daily on online platforms until a few weeks before his passing, and had been arranging to give a talk on his life and work.

Memorable Assignments

Tales from a turbulent career featured an expenses-shredding business class flight in 1991 to attend the burial in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from sunstroke and pneumonia and was treated with ice that had been employed to cool the body.

His 1983 images of the at that time Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, falling into the sea on Brighton beach were published across multiple columns of a front page, and are regularly reproduced as a striking example of staged photo hubris. His 2016’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, was named after an exasperated John Major hitting him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Career Milestones

He was appointed as the Times’ most youthful staff photographer when he joined the paper in 1976, at the age of 26, and was based around the world for almost ten years, including reporting of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he considered editing 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 was instrumental in forming the style of editorial photography that the paper was famous for, helping set new standards for press images and broadsheet design, in striking images covering multiple pages. Among many awards, he was honoured as the What the Papers Say photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe documenting the fall 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 Commonwealth War Graves Commission, 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 Beginnings

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

At a Fleet Street photo agency, he rose rapidly from delivery boy to photographer, and launched his professional career at eastern London local papers before moving on to major publications.

Peers and Impact

Fellow photographers, often scooped by him, remembered his work as remarkable. A colleague, who worked with him in the initial stages, called him “a superb and brave photographer”, an influence to a cohort of young colleagues. Another associate, a freelance organiser, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris reconnected 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 driving tour in Europe, sharing bright images of fine dining and good wine, and revisiting important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, completed a short time before his demise, was to donate his extensive collection of 55 years’ work to a permanent home. Among his favourite archive images he reflected on a youthful Harris consuming large glasses of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a fortunate life I’ve had – no remorse 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.