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The photojournalist B. Harris, who has died aged 73 of 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 travelled the world as a freelance or a employee for major British titles, documenting major happenings including the fall 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 presidential campaigns. He also created lyrical scenic views of the countryside around his Essex home.

According to his estimates he took over two million images, taking an average of 100 a day, but he stated that figure some years back. He continued posting archive and new images each day on online platforms up to a few weeks before his passing, and had been arranging to deliver a lecture on his career and experiences.

Memorable Assignments

Tales from a rollercoaster career included an expenses-shredding business class flight in 1991 to attend the burial in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from sunstroke and pneumonia and was cooled down 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, toppling into the tide on Brighton beach were carried across eight columns of a front page, and are often reprinted 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 hitting him with a folded briefing paper.

Professional Milestones

He was appointed as the Times’ most youthful staff photographer when he joined the paper in 1976, at the age of 26, and worked around the world for almost ten years, including reporting of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he saw as censorship of his strongest images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was put together to launch a new newspaper. He was instrumental in forming the style of editorial photography that the paper became known for, helping set new standards for press images and newspaper design, in dramatic images filling front and back pages. Among numerous awards, he was named the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe documenting the collapse of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being let go in 1999, and significant projects thereafter 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 moving book, Remembered.

Background and Start

Harris was raised in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later helped his son build a photo lab in the garage. In the 1950s, the family moved farther east – 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 quickly advanced from messenger boy to photographer, and began his working life at eastern London local papers before moving on to national publications.

Peers and Legacy

Other photographers, often outpaced by him, recalled his work as remarkable. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the early days, called him “a superb and brave photographer”, an inspiration to a cohort of young colleagues. Another associate, a union representative, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris made contact through a online service with Nikki, whom he had initially encountered as a toddler in infant school, and they became close companions through his final decades. After learning of his illness, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, sharing bright images of good meals and good wine, and returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, completed a few weeks before his death, was to transfer his extensive collection of five decades of work to a permanent home. Among his preferred archive images he reflected on a very young Harris consuming generous servings 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, each union ended in divorce.

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