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The photographer B. Harris, who has died aged 73 from cancer, left school at 16 to become a messenger boy, and eventually became among the most esteemed British photojournalists of his era.

A Global Career

He travelled the world as a independent or a employee for Fleet Street publications, covering such events as the collapse 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. Additionally, he produced lyrical landscapes of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

By his own calculation he shot more than 2m images, taking an average of 100 a day, but he stated that figure several years ago. He kept sharing historical and new images daily on social media up to a few weeks before his passing, and had been arranging to deliver a lecture on his career and experiences.

Notable Assignments

Stories from a turbulent career included an costly premium flight in 1991 to reach the funeral in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from sunstroke and pneumonia and was treated with ice that had been used to preserve 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 eight columns of a leading page, and are often reprinted as a hideous example of photo-opportunity hubris. His 2016’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, took the title from an irritated John Major striking him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Career Milestones

He became the Times’ youngest ever staff photographer when he started there 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 journalistic photography that the paper was famous for, helping set new standards for press images and newspaper design, in dramatic images filling front and back pages. Among numerous awards, he was honoured as the What the Papers Say photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe recording the fall of communism.

He operated independently after being made redundant 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 exhibition launched in London – where he gave a personal tour to Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a emotional book, Remembered.

Background and Beginnings

Harris was born in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later helped his son construct a darkroom in the garage. In the mid 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 woodwork and metal crafting, before departing at 16.

At a central London agency, he rose rapidly from messenger boy to photographer, and began his working life at eastern London local papers before moving on to major publications.

Colleagues and Impact

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

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki, whom he had initially encountered as a three-year-old in primary school, and they became close companions through his remaining years. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they went on a road trip in Europe, posting bright images of fine dining and good wine, and revisiting significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, finished a few weeks before his demise, was to donate his extensive collection of five decades of work to a permanent home. Among his favourite historical photos he commented on a very young Harris drinking generous servings of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a fortunate life I’ve had – no regrets and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was married twice, each union ended in divorce.

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