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The photojournalist B. Harris, who has died aged 73 from cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to work as a courier, and eventually became one of the most respected British photojournalists of his generation.

An International Career

He travelled across the globe as a independent or a employee for Fleet Street publications, documenting such events as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkan region and throughout Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands conflict and four US election campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic landscapes of the rural areas around his Essex home.

According to his estimates he took over 2m images, averaging 100 a day, but he stated that figure some years back. He continued posting archive and new images daily on online platforms until a short time before his passing, and had been arranging to give a talk on his career and experiences.

Memorable Assignments

Stories from a turbulent career featured an costly premium flight in 1991 to attend the burial in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed 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, 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 memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, took the title from an irritated John Major hitting him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Professional Milestones

He was appointed as the Times’ most youthful staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and was based around the world for almost ten years, 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 famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was assembled to launch a major newspaper. He played a key role in shaping the style of editorial photography that the paper was famous for, helping set new standards for press images and newspaper design, in striking images filling 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 operated independently after being let go in 1999, and major projects after that included a year spent photographing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, which resulted in an exhibition launched in London – where he gave a private viewing to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Early Life and Beginnings

Harris was born in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later assisted him build a photo lab in the garage. In the 1950s, the family relocated eastwards – and to a better area – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended Chase Cross secondary modern school, acquiring practical skills in woodwork and metalwork, before leaving at 16.

At a Fleet Street agency, he rose rapidly from delivery boy to photographer, and launched his professional career at eastern London local papers before moving on to major publications.

Peers and Impact

Other photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as astonishing. A colleague, who worked with him in the initial stages, described him as “a superb and fearless photographer”, an influence to a cohort of junior colleagues. Tim Dawson, a freelance organiser, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki, whom he had initially encountered as a three-year-old in infant school, and they became close companions through his remaining years. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they embarked on a road trip in Europe, sharing sunny images of good meals and good wine, and returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a few weeks before his demise, was to donate his extensive collection of five decades of work to a permanent home. Among his favourite historical photos he commented on a youthful 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 wed twice, each union ended in divorce.

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