🔗 Share this article

The photographer B. Harris, who passed away aged 73 from cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to work as a courier, and went on to become among the most esteemed British documentary photographers of his generation.

A Global Career

He travelled across the globe as a freelance or a staffer for major British publications, documenting major happenings including the fall of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkans and throughout Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands conflict and several US election campaigns. He also created lyrical landscapes of the countryside around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he shot more than two million photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He continued posting archive and recent images each day on online platforms until a few weeks before his death, and had been planning to deliver a lecture on his career and experiences.

Memorable Assignments

Stories from a turbulent career featured an expenses-shredding premium flight in 1991 to attend the funeral in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from heatstroke and pneumonia and was cooled down with ice that had been used to preserve the body.

His 1983 images of the at that time Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, falling into the sea on Brighton beach were published across multiple 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 became the a major newspaper’s youngest ever staff photographer when he joined the paper in 1976, at the age of 26, and was based around the world for almost ten years, including coverage of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he considered censorship of his strongest images of famine 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 was famous for, helping raise the bar for press images and newspaper design, in striking images filling front and back pages. Among many awards, he was named the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe documenting the collapse of communism.

He operated independently after being let go in 1999, and major projects after that 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 Start

Harris was born in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later helped his son build a photo lab in the garage. In the mid 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 useful skills in woodwork and metal crafting, before leaving at 16.

At a Fleet Street agency, he quickly advanced from messenger boy to photographer, and began his professional career at east London local papers before moving on to national publications.

Colleagues and Legacy

Other photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as astonishing. A colleague, who worked with him in the early days, called him “a great and brave 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 three-year-old in infant school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After learning of his illness, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, sharing sunny images of fine dining and good wine, and revisiting significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, completed a short time before his death, 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 youthful Harris consuming 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, both marriages ended in divorce.

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