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The photographer Brian Harris, who has died aged 73 from cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and eventually became among the most esteemed British documentary photographers of his generation.

An International Career

He journeyed the world as a independent or a employee for Fleet Street titles, covering such events as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkans and throughout Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands war and several US election campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic landscapes of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

By his own calculation he took over 2m photographs, taking an average of 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He continued posting archive and new images each day on social media until a short time before his passing, and had been arranging to give a talk on his life and work.

Notable Projects

Tales from a turbulent career featured an costly business class flight in 1991 to reach the funeral in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from sunstroke and pneumonia and was cooled down with ice that had been used to preserve the body.

His 1983 images of the then Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, falling into the sea on Brighton beach were carried across eight 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, took the title from an exasperated John Major striking him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Professional Milestones

He was appointed as the Times’ most youthful staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and worked around the world for nearly a decade, including reporting of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he saw as censorship of his most powerful images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was put together to launch a major newspaper. He played a key role in forming the style of editorial photography that the paper was famous for, helping set new standards for news photography and newspaper design, in dramatic 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 the former Eastern Bloc recording the collapse of communism.

He operated independently 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 Start

Harris was raised in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later helped his son construct a darkroom in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family relocated farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to Chase Cross secondary modern school, learning practical skills in carpentry and metal crafting, before departing at 16.

At a Fleet Street photo agency, he rose rapidly from messenger boy to photographer, and launched his working life at east London local papers before moving on to national publications.

Colleagues and Impact

Other photographers, often outpaced by him, remembered his work as remarkable. A colleague, who collaborated with him in the initial stages, described him as “a great and fearless photographer”, an influence to a generation of junior colleagues. Another associate, a freelance organiser, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris made contact through a online service with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had initially encountered as a three-year-old in infant school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After learning of his illness, they embarked on a road trip in Europe, sharing sunny images of fine dining and good wine, and returning to important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, completed a short time before his death, was to donate his extensive collection of five decades of work to a permanent home. Among his preferred archive images he reflected on a youthful Harris drinking large glasses 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, each union concluded with divorce.

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