Esteemed Photographer Brian Harris Obituary: A Life Through the Lens

The photographer B. Harris, who has died at the age of 73 of cancer, left school at 16 to become a messenger boy, and went on to become among the most esteemed UK photojournalists of his generation.

A Global Professional Journey

He travelled the world as a freelance or a employee for major British titles, documenting major happenings including the fall of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkan region and throughout Africa, the consequences 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.

According to his estimates he took over two million images, taking an average of 100 a day, but he stated that figure several years ago. He kept sharing archive and new images daily on online platforms up to a short time before his death, and had been arranging to deliver a lecture on his life and work.

Notable Assignments

Tales from a rollercoaster career included an costly premium flight in 1991 to reach the burial in India of the slain politician 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 sea on Brighton beach were carried 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 irritated John Major hitting him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Professional Milestones

He was appointed as the Times’ youngest ever staff photographer when he joined the paper in 1976, at the age of 26, and worked around the world for nearly a decade, including reporting of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he saw as censorship of his strongest images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was put together to launch a major newspaper. He was instrumental in forming the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping set new standards for news photography and broadsheet design, in dramatic images covering front and back pages. Among many awards, he was named the What the Papers Say photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc documenting the collapse of communism.

He operated independently after being let go in 1999, and major projects thereafter 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 private viewing 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 mid 1950s, the family moved eastwards – and up in the world – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended a local secondary modern school, learning useful skills in woodwork and metalwork, before leaving at 16.

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

Peers and Legacy

Other photographers, often outpaced by him, remembered his work as remarkable. Nick Turpin, who collaborated 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 “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

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 close companions through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, posting bright images of fine dining and quality drinks, and returning to important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, completed a few weeks before his demise, was to donate his vast archive of five decades of work to a permanent home. Among his preferred historical photos he commented on a youthful Harris consuming 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 married twice, both marriages concluded with divorce.

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