Esteemed Photographer Brian Harris Life Story: A Life Through the Lens

The photojournalist Brian Harris, who has died aged 73 from cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and went on to become one of the most respected UK photojournalists of his era.

An International Career

He travelled across the globe as a independent or a staffer for Fleet Street titles, documenting such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkan region and throughout Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands war and several US election campaigns. He also created poetic landscapes of the rural areas around his Essex home.

By his own calculation he took over two million photographs, taking an average of 100 a day, but he stated that figure some years back. He kept sharing historical and recent images each day on online platforms until a few weeks before his death, and had been planning to give a talk on his career and experiences.

Memorable Assignments

Tales from a turbulent career featured an costly premium flight in 1991 to attend the funeral in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed from sunstroke 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 sea on Brighton beach were carried across eight columns of a leading page, and are often reprinted as a hideous example of staged photo hubris. His 2016’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, took the title from an exasperated John Major hitting him with a folded briefing paper.

Professional Milestones

He was appointed as the a major newspaper’s most youthful staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and was based around the world for nearly a decade, including reporting of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he saw as editing of his most powerful images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was assembled to launch a new newspaper. He played a key role in shaping the style of editorial photography that the paper was famous for, helping set new standards for news photography and newspaper design, in dramatic images covering multiple pages. Among many awards, he was named the industry-recognised 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 thereafter included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which resulted in an display launched in London – where he gave a personal tour to Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Early Life and Beginnings

Harris was raised in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later helped his son construct a photo lab in the garage. In the 1950s, the family relocated eastwards – and up in the world – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to a local secondary modern school, acquiring useful skills in carpentry and metal crafting, before departing at 16.

At a Fleet Street agency, he quickly advanced from messenger boy to photographer, and began his working life at eastern London local papers before progressing to national publications.

Peers and Impact

Other photographers, often scooped by him, remembered his work as astonishing. A colleague, who worked with him in the initial stages, described him as “a great and fearless photographer”, an inspiration to a generation of junior colleagues. Another associate, a union representative, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki, whom he had first met as a three-year-old 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 good meals and quality drinks, and returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, finished a short time before his death, was to transfer his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his preferred archive images he reflected on a very young Harris drinking generous servings of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a fortunate life I’ve had – no remorse 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.