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The photojournalist Brian Harris, who has died at the age of 73 of cancer, left school at 16 to become a messenger boy, and went on to become one of the most respected UK photojournalists of his generation.

An International Career

He journeyed across the globe as a independent or a staffer for major British titles, covering major happenings including 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 across Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands conflict and four US election campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic landscapes of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he shot over 2m images, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He kept sharing historical and new images daily on online platforms until a short time before his death, and had been planning to deliver a lecture on his career and experiences.

Memorable Assignments

Stories from a rollercoaster career featured an expenses-shredding business class flight in 1991 to reach the funeral in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed from sunstroke and pneumonia and was cooled down 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, falling into the tide on Brighton beach were carried across eight columns of a front page, and are regularly reproduced as a hideous example of photo-opportunity hubris. His 2016 memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, was named after an exasperated John Major striking him with a folded briefing paper.

Career Milestones

He became the a major newspaper’s youngest ever staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and worked around the world for nearly a decade, including coverage of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he considered editing of his strongest images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was put together to launch a major newspaper. He was instrumental in forming the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping set new standards for press images and broadsheet design, in dramatic images covering multiple 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 worked as a freelance after being let go in 1999, and major projects thereafter included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, 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 Beginnings

Harris was raised in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later assisted him construct a darkroom in the garage. In the 1950s, the family moved eastwards – and up in the world – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended a local secondary modern school, acquiring practical skills in carpentry and metal crafting, before leaving at 16.

At a Fleet Street agency, he rose rapidly from delivery boy to photographer, and began his working life at east London local papers before progressing to national publications.

Peers and Impact

Other photographers, often outpaced by him, recalled his work as remarkable. A colleague, who worked with him in the initial stages, described him as “a superb and brave photographer”, an inspiration to a cohort of junior colleagues. Tim Dawson, a union representative, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had initially encountered as a toddler in infant school, and they became inseparable partners through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they went on a road trip in Europe, posting sunny images of good meals and quality drinks, and revisiting significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a short time before his demise, was to donate his extensive collection of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his favourite archive images he reflected on a youthful 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.