Brian Harris Life Story: A Life Through the Camera

The photographer B. Harris, who has died aged 73 of cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and went on to become one of the most respected British photojournalists of his era.

A Global Career

He journeyed the world as a freelance 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 throughout Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands conflict and four US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced lyrical scenic views of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

By his own calculation he shot more than two million photographs, taking an average of 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He kept sharing historical and new images each day on online platforms until a few weeks before his passing, and had been planning to deliver a lecture on his life and work.

Notable Projects

Tales from a rollercoaster career featured an costly 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 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, falling into the sea on Brighton beach were carried across multiple columns of a leading page, and are often reprinted 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.

Career Milestones

He was appointed as the Times’ youngest ever staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and worked around the world for almost ten years, including reporting of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he considered censorship of his most powerful images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was put together to create a major newspaper. He was instrumental in forming the style of editorial photography that the paper became known for, helping set new standards for press images and broadsheet design, in dramatic images covering 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 worked as a freelance 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 resulted in 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.

Background and Start

Harris was raised 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 up in the world – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to a local secondary modern school, learning practical skills in carpentry and metalwork, before departing at 16.

At a Fleet Street photo agency, he rose rapidly from delivery boy to photographer, and launched his working life at eastern London local papers before progressing to national publications.

Colleagues and Impact

Fellow photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as remarkable. 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 “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a online service with Nikki, whom he had initially encountered 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 road trip in Europe, posting bright images of fine dining and quality drinks, and returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, finished a few weeks before his demise, was to transfer his extensive collection of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his favourite archive images he commented on a very young Harris consuming generous servings 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 survived by Nikki, his son Jacob, from his second marriage, Nikki’s daughter, Holly, and by his sister, Jan.