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The photographer B. Harris, who passed away at the age of 73 from cancer, left school at 16 to become a messenger boy, and eventually became among the most esteemed UK photojournalists of his era.

An International Professional Journey

He travelled across the globe as a freelance or a staffer for major British titles, documenting major happenings including the fall of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkan region and throughout Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands war and four US election campaigns. He also created lyrical landscapes of the countryside around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he shot over two million images, taking an average of 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He continued posting archive and new images daily 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 Projects

Stories from a turbulent career featured an costly premium flight in 1991 to reach the burial in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed from heatstroke and pneumonia and was treated with ice that had been used to preserve the body.

His 1983’s images of the then Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, falling into the tide on Brighton beach were carried across multiple columns of a front 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 irritated John Major striking him with a folded briefing paper.

Career Highlights

He became the Times’ most youthful 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 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 launch a major newspaper. He played a key role in shaping the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping set new standards for news photography and broadsheet design, in dramatic images filling front and back pages. Among numerous awards, he was named the What the Papers Say photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe recording the collapse of communism.

He operated independently after being made redundant in 1999, and significant projects after that included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, which resulted in an display launched in London – where he gave a private viewing to Queen Elizabeth II 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 electrician who later helped his son construct a darkroom in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family relocated farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended a local secondary modern school, acquiring useful skills in woodwork and metal crafting, before departing at 16.

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

Colleagues and Legacy

Other photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as astonishing. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the early days, called him “a great and fearless photographer”, an inspiration to a generation of young colleagues. Tim Dawson, a freelance organiser, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

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 good meals and good wine, and returning to important 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 long-term repository. Among his favourite archive images he reflected on a youthful Harris drinking large glasses of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a blessed life I’ve had – no regrets and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was married twice, each union concluded with divorce.

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