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The photographer B. Harris, who passed away at the age of 73 of cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and eventually became among the most esteemed UK photojournalists of his generation.

An International Professional Journey

He travelled the world as a independent or a employee for major British titles, documenting major happenings including the collapse of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkan region and across Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands war and four US election campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic scenic views of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

By his own calculation he shot more than 2m photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He continued posting historical and new images each day on social media until a short time before his passing, and had been planning to give a talk on his life and work.

Memorable Projects

Stories from a rollercoaster career included an expenses-shredding business class flight in 1991 to attend the funeral in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from sunstroke and pneumonia and was treated 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, toppling into the sea 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’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, was named after an irritated John Major hitting him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Career Highlights

He was appointed as the Times’ youngest ever staff photographer when he joined the paper in 1976, at the age of 26, and was based around the world for nearly a decade, including reporting of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he saw as editing of his strongest images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was put together to create a new newspaper. He was instrumental in shaping the style of editorial photography that the paper was famous for, helping raise the bar for news photography and newspaper design, in striking images filling multiple pages. Among numerous awards, he was named the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc documenting the fall of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being let go in 1999, and significant projects after that 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 electrician who later helped his son build a photo lab in the garage. In the 1950s, the family moved farther east – and up in the world – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to Chase Cross secondary modern school, acquiring useful skills in carpentry and metalwork, before leaving at 16.

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

Peers and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often scooped by him, remembered his work as remarkable. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the initial stages, called him “a great and brave photographer”, an influence to a cohort of young colleagues. Tim Dawson, a freelance organiser, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had initially encountered as a three-year-old in infant school, and they became inseparable partners through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they went on a driving tour in Europe, sharing sunny images of fine dining and good wine, and revisiting important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a few weeks before his demise, 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 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 wed twice, each union ended in divorce.

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