Brian Harris Life Story: A Life Behind the Lens

The photojournalist B. Harris, who has died at the age of 73 of cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to become a messenger boy, and eventually became among the most esteemed UK photojournalists of his generation.

A Global Career

He travelled the world as a freelance or a staffer for Fleet Street publications, documenting such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkans and throughout Africa, the consequences of the Falklands war and several US election campaigns. He also created lyrical scenic views of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

By his own calculation he shot over two million photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he stated that figure some years back. He continued posting historical and recent images daily on social media until a short time before his passing, and had been arranging to give a talk on his career and experiences.

Notable Projects

Stories from a rollercoaster 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 treated with ice that had been employed to cool the body.

His 1983 images of the then Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, falling into the sea on Brighton beach were published 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, was named after an exasperated John Major hitting him with a folded briefing paper.

Professional Milestones

He was appointed as the Times’ youngest ever 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 internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he saw as censorship of his most powerful images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was put together to launch a new newspaper. He was instrumental in forming the style of editorial photography that the paper was famous for, helping set new standards for news photography and broadsheet design, in dramatic images covering 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 fall of communism.

He operated independently after being made redundant in 1999, and major projects after that included a year spent photographing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which led to 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.

Early Life and Start

Harris was raised in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later helped his son construct a darkroom in the garage. In the 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, acquiring practical skills in woodwork and metalwork, before departing at 16.

At a central London agency, he quickly advanced from delivery boy to photographer, and began his professional career at eastern London local papers before moving on to major publications.

Colleagues and Impact

Other photographers, often outpaced by him, remembered his work as astonishing. A colleague, who worked with him in the early days, called him “a great and brave photographer”, an influence to a generation of junior colleagues. Tim Dawson, a union representative, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris made contact through a online service with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had first met as a three-year-old in infant school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After learning of his illness, they embarked on a road trip in Europe, posting sunny images of fine dining and quality drinks, and returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, completed a short time before his demise, was to donate his vast archive of five decades of work to a long-term repository. Among his preferred historical photos he commented on a youthful Harris consuming 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 ended in divorce.

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