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

A Global Professional Journey

He journeyed the world as a independent or a staffer for Fleet Street publications, covering such events as 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 consequences of the Falklands conflict and four US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic landscapes of the countryside around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he took more than 2m photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He continued posting archive and recent images each day on social media until a short time before his death, and had been arranging to give a talk on his career and experiences.

Memorable Assignments

Tales from a rollercoaster career included an expenses-shredding premium flight in 1991 to reach the burial in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed from heatstroke and pneumonia and was cooled down with ice that had been used to preserve 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 carried across eight columns of a front page, and are regularly reproduced as a striking example of photo-opportunity hubris. His 2016 memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, was named after an irritated John Major hitting him with a folded briefing paper.

Professional Highlights

He was appointed as the a major newspaper’s 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 internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he saw as editing of his most powerful images of famine 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 editorial photography that the paper was famous for, helping raise the bar for news photography and newspaper design, in dramatic images filling front and back pages. Among many awards, he was honoured as the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc documenting the fall of communism.

He operated independently after being made redundant in 1999, and significant 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 Start

Harris was born in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later helped his son build a darkroom in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family relocated eastwards – and to a better area – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to Chase Cross secondary modern school, learning useful skills in carpentry and metalwork, before departing at 16.

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

Peers and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as astonishing. A colleague, who worked with him in the early days, described him as “a great and fearless photographer”, an inspiration to a cohort of young colleagues. Another associate, a union representative, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a online service with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had first met as a toddler in primary school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After learning of his illness, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, sharing sunny 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 death, was to donate his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a permanent home. Among his favourite historical photos he commented on a very young Harris consuming 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 wed twice, each union ended in divorce.

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