🔗 Share this article

The photographer B. Harris, who has died aged 73 from cancer, left school at 16 to become a messenger boy, and eventually became one of the most respected UK documentary photographers of his era.

An International Professional Journey

He journeyed the world as a freelance or a employee for Fleet Street titles, covering such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkan region and throughout Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands war and several US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced lyrical scenic views of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he took over two million photographs, taking an average of 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He kept sharing archive and new images daily on social media until a few weeks before his passing, and had been arranging to give a talk on his career and experiences.

Notable Assignments

Stories from a turbulent career featured an expenses-shredding premium flight in 1991 to attend the funeral in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from heatstroke and pneumonia and was cooled down with ice that had been employed to cool 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 memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, took the title from an exasperated John Major hitting him with a folded briefing paper.

Professional Highlights

He was appointed as 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 reporting of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he considered censorship of his strongest images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was assembled to launch a major newspaper. He was instrumental in shaping the style of editorial photography that the paper became known for, helping set new standards for press images and newspaper design, in striking images covering front and back pages. Among many awards, he was named the What the Papers Say photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe documenting 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 war memorial organisation, which led to an exhibition launched in London – where he gave a private viewing to Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a emotional book, Remembered.

Early Life and Start

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

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

Peers and Legacy

Other photographers, often outpaced by him, remembered his work as astonishing. Nick Turpin, who worked with him in the early days, described him as “a great and fearless photographer”, an inspiration to a cohort of junior colleagues. Tim Dawson, a freelance organiser, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris made contact through a online service 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 learning of his illness, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, sharing bright images of fine dining and good wine, and returning to important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a short time before his demise, was to donate his extensive collection of five decades of work to a long-term repository. Among his favourite archive images he reflected on a very young Harris drinking generous servings of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a blessed life I’ve had – no regrets and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was wed twice, both marriages concluded with divorce.

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