🔗 Share this article Esteemed Photographer Brian Harris Obituary: An Existence Through the Camera 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 UK documentary photographers of his generation. An International Career He journeyed the world as a freelance or a staffer for major British titles, covering major happenings including the fall of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkans and across Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands war and four US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced lyrical landscapes of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home. By his own calculation he took more than 2m photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He continued posting archive and new images each day on social media up to a short time before his passing, and had been planning to give a talk on his career and experiences. Memorable Projects Tales from a turbulent career featured an costly premium flight in 1991 to reach the burial in India of the slain politician 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’s images of the at that time Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, falling into the tide on Brighton beach were carried across multiple 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 exasperated John Major striking him with a folded briefing paper. Professional Highlights He was appointed as the Times’ most youthful staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and was based around the world for nearly a decade, including coverage of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he saw as editing of his strongest images of starvation in Africa. In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was assembled 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 news photography and newspaper design, in striking images covering front and back 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 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 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 emotional book, Remembered. Early Life and Beginnings Harris was raised in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later helped his son construct a photo lab in the garage. In the 1950s, the family moved farther east – and up in the world – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended Chase Cross secondary modern school, acquiring useful skills in carpentry and metal crafting, before leaving at 16. At a Fleet Street agency, he rose rapidly from delivery boy to photographer, and launched his working life at eastern London local papers before moving on to national publications. Peers and Legacy Fellow photographers, often outpaced by him, recalled his work as remarkable. A colleague, who worked with him in the initial stages, called him “a superb and brave photographer”, an inspiration to a cohort of young colleagues. Another associate, a freelance organiser, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”. Private World In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had initially encountered as a three-year-old in primary school, and they became close companions through his remaining years. After learning of his illness, they went on a road trip in Europe, sharing bright images of good meals and quality drinks, and returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres. His final project, finished a short time before his demise, was to transfer his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his favourite archive images he reflected on a very young Harris consuming large glasses of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a blessed life I’ve had – no regrets and no ‘Must Do’s’”. He was married 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.