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The photographer B. Harris, who passed away at the age of 73 of cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to become a messenger boy, and went on to become among the most esteemed British photojournalists of his generation.

An International Career

He travelled the world as a freelance or a employee for major British titles, covering such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger 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. He also created poetic landscapes of the rural areas around his Essex home.

According to his estimates he shot more than two million photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He kept sharing historical and recent images each day on social media up to a few weeks before his death, and had been arranging to deliver a lecture on his career and experiences.

Notable Assignments

Tales from a turbulent career included an costly business class flight in 1991 to attend 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 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 multiple 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, was named after an exasperated John Major striking him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Career Milestones

He became the Times’ youngest ever 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 strongest images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was put together to create a new newspaper. He played a key role in shaping the style of journalistic photography that the paper was famous for, helping set new standards for news photography and newspaper design, in dramatic images covering multiple pages. Among numerous 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 made redundant 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 exhibition launched in London – where he gave a private viewing 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 technician who later assisted him build a darkroom in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family moved eastwards – and to a better area – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to a local secondary modern school, learning useful skills in carpentry and metalwork, before leaving at 16.

At a Fleet Street agency, he quickly advanced from messenger boy to photographer, and launched his working life at eastern London local papers before moving on to major publications.

Peers and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often scooped by him, remembered his work as remarkable. A colleague, who worked with him in the early days, called him “a great and brave photographer”, an inspiration to a cohort of young colleagues. Tim Dawson, a freelance organiser, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had first met as a toddler in primary school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After learning of his illness, they went on a road trip in Europe, sharing sunny images of good meals and good wine, 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 55 years’ work to a permanent home. Among his preferred historical photos he reflected on a youthful Harris drinking 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 concluded with divorce.

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