Esteemed Photographer Brian Harris Obituary: An Existence Behind the Lens

The photographer Brian Harris, who passed away aged 73 from cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to work as a courier, and eventually became one of the most respected UK photojournalists of his era.

An International Career

He journeyed the world as a freelance or a staffer for Fleet Street publications, documenting major happenings including the fall of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkan region and throughout Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands war and four US election 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 images, taking an average of 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He kept sharing historical and recent images each day on online platforms up to a few weeks before his passing, and had been arranging to deliver a lecture on his life and work.

Memorable Assignments

Stories from a rollercoaster career featured an expenses-shredding premium flight in 1991 to attend the funeral in India of the assassinated leader 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’s images of the at that time Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, falling into the tide on Brighton beach were published across eight columns of a leading page, and are regularly reproduced as a hideous example of photo-opportunity hubris. His 2016’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, took the title from an exasperated John Major striking him with a folded briefing paper.

Professional Milestones

He was appointed as the a major newspaper’s most youthful staff photographer when he joined the paper in 1976, at the age of 26, and was based around the world for almost ten years, including coverage of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he considered censorship of his most powerful images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was assembled to create a new newspaper. He played a key role in forming the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping set new standards for press images and newspaper design, in striking images filling 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 the former Eastern Bloc recording the collapse of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being made redundant 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 private viewing to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a emotional book, Remembered.

Early Life and Start

Harris was born in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later helped his son build a darkroom in the garage. In the 1950s, the family relocated eastwards – and to a better area – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to Chase Cross secondary modern school, learning useful skills in carpentry and metal crafting, before departing at 16.

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

Peers and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as remarkable. Nick Turpin, who worked with him in the initial stages, called him “a superb and fearless photographer”, an inspiration to a generation of junior colleagues. Another associate, a freelance organiser, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris made contact through a website with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had initially encountered as a toddler in infant school, and they became close companions through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they went on a driving tour in Europe, posting bright images of fine dining and good wine, and returning to important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a few weeks before his death, was to transfer his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his preferred historical photos he commented on a youthful 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, both marriages concluded with divorce.

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