🔗 Share this article

The photojournalist Brian Harris, who passed away aged 73 of cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and eventually became among the most esteemed British photojournalists of his era.

An International Career

He journeyed across the globe as a freelance or a staffer for Fleet Street titles, documenting major happenings including the collapse of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkans and throughout Africa, the consequences of the Falklands war and four US election campaigns. Additionally, he produced lyrical scenic views of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he shot over two million images, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He continued posting historical and recent images daily on social media until a few weeks before his passing, and had been planning to deliver a lecture on his life and work.

Memorable Assignments

Stories from a rollercoaster career included an costly business class flight in 1991 to reach the burial in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from heatstroke and pneumonia and was treated with ice that had been employed to cool the body.

His 1983 images of the then Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, toppling into the sea on Brighton beach were published 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, was named after an irritated John Major striking him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Career Milestones

He became 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 eventually resigned over what he considered editing of his strongest images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was put together to launch a new newspaper. He played a key role in forming the style of journalistic photography that the paper was famous for, helping set new standards for press images and newspaper design, in dramatic images filling multiple pages. Among many awards, he was honoured as the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc documenting the fall of communism.

He operated independently after being let go in 1999, and significant projects after that included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, 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 eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later assisted him construct 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 attended a local secondary modern school, acquiring useful skills in woodwork and metalwork, before departing at 16.

At a central London agency, he rose rapidly from messenger boy to photographer, and launched his professional career at eastern London local papers before progressing to major publications.

Colleagues and Impact

Other photographers, often scooped by him, remembered his work as remarkable. Nick Turpin, who worked with him in the early days, described him as “a great and brave photographer”, an inspiration to a generation of junior 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 online service with Nikki Bertroya, 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, posting bright images of good meals and quality drinks, and revisiting important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a short time before his demise, was to donate his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a permanent home. Among his favourite archive images he commented 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, each union concluded with divorce.

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