🔗 Share this article

The photographer Brian Harris, who passed away at the age of 73 from cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to work as a courier, and eventually became among the most esteemed UK photojournalists of his generation.

A Global Professional Journey

He journeyed across the globe as a independent or a employee for Fleet Street 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 consequences of the Falklands conflict and four US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic scenic views of the rural areas around his Essex home.

According to his estimates he shot over two million photographs, taking an average of 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He continued posting historical and new images each day on online platforms until a few weeks before his death, and had been arranging to give a talk on his career and experiences.

Notable Assignments

Tales from a rollercoaster career featured an expenses-shredding business class flight in 1991 to reach the burial in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from sunstroke and pneumonia and was treated 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 published across multiple columns of a leading page, and are often reprinted as a striking example of staged photo 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.

Career 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 reporting of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he considered censorship of his strongest images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was assembled to launch a major newspaper. He played a key role in forming the style of journalistic photography that the paper was famous for, helping set new standards for news photography and broadsheet design, in striking images filling multiple 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 fall of communism.

He operated independently after being let go in 1999, and significant projects after that included a year spent photographing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which led to an exhibition launched in London – where he gave a personal tour to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Background and Start

Harris was born in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later assisted him build a photo lab in the garage. In the 1950s, the family relocated farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to a local secondary modern school, acquiring useful skills in woodwork and metalwork, before leaving at 16.

At a Fleet Street photo agency, he quickly advanced from delivery boy to photographer, and began his professional career at eastern London local papers before progressing to national publications.

Peers and Impact

Other photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as astonishing. A colleague, who worked with him in the initial stages, described him as “a superb and fearless photographer”, an influence to a generation of junior colleagues. Another associate, a union representative, said he “transformed 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 primary school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they embarked on a road trip in Europe, sharing bright images of good meals and good wine, and revisiting important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, completed a few weeks before his demise, was to transfer his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his favourite archive images he commented on a very young 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, each union ended in divorce.

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