🔗 Share this article

The photojournalist B. Harris, who passed away at the age of 73 from cancer, left school 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 travelled the world as a freelance or a employee for major British publications, documenting such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkan region and across Africa, the consequences 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 shot more than two million photographs, taking an average of 100 a day, but he stated that figure some years back. He continued posting historical and new images each day on social media up to a few weeks before his death, and had been planning to deliver a lecture on his life and work.

Memorable Assignments

Tales from a rollercoaster career included an expenses-shredding business class flight in 1991 to reach the funeral 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 published across multiple columns of a leading page, and are regularly reproduced as a hideous example of staged photo 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.

Professional Highlights

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 coverage of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he considered censorship of his most powerful images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was assembled to create a major newspaper. He played a key role in shaping the style of editorial photography that the paper became known for, helping raise the bar for news photography and newspaper design, in dramatic images covering 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 recording the fall of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being let go in 1999, and major projects after that included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, 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 raised in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later assisted him build a photo lab in the garage. In the mid 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 practical skills in woodwork and metal crafting, before leaving at 16.

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

Colleagues and Impact

Other photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as astonishing. A colleague, who collaborated with him in the initial stages, described him as “a great and brave photographer”, an influence to a generation of young colleagues. Tim Dawson, a freelance organiser, 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 infant school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they went on a driving tour in Europe, posting sunny images of fine dining and quality drinks, and returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, finished a few weeks before his death, was to donate his vast archive of five decades of work to a permanent home. Among his favourite historical photos he commented on a youthful 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 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.