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The photographer B. Harris, who passed away at the age of 73 from cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to become a messenger boy, and went on to become one of the most respected British documentary photographers of his generation.

A Global Professional Journey

He travelled the world as a independent or a employee for major British titles, covering major happenings including the fall of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkan region and throughout Africa, the consequences of the Falklands war and four US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced lyrical landscapes of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

By his own calculation he shot more than 2m images, averaging 100 a day, but he stated that figure several years ago. He kept sharing archive and recent 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 Assignments

Stories from a turbulent career included an costly business class flight in 1991 to reach 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 employed to cool the body.

His 1983’s 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 front page, and are regularly reproduced as a striking example of photo-opportunity hubris. His 2016’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, took the title from an irritated John Major hitting him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Career Highlights

He became the a major newspaper’s youngest ever staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and was based around the world for nearly a decade, including coverage of the end of the civil war 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 became chief 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 raise the bar for press images and broadsheet design, in striking images filling multiple pages. Among numerous awards, he was honoured as 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 let go in 1999, and significant projects thereafter 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 the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Background and Beginnings

Harris was raised in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later helped his son build a photo lab in the garage. In the 1950s, the family moved eastwards – and to a better area – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to Chase Cross secondary modern school, acquiring practical skills in carpentry and metalwork, before departing at 16.

At a central London photo agency, he rose rapidly from messenger boy to photographer, and began his professional career at eastern London local papers before moving on to national publications.

Peers and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as astonishing. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the initial stages, called him “a great and fearless photographer”, an inspiration to a cohort of young colleagues. Another associate, a freelance organiser, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki, whom he had first met as a toddler in primary school, and they became inseparable partners through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they embarked on a road trip in Europe, sharing sunny images of good meals and good wine, and revisiting significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, finished a few weeks before his death, was to transfer his extensive collection of 55 years’ work to a permanent home. Among his favourite archive images he reflected on a very young Harris drinking large glasses of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a blessed 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.