Brian Harris Life Story: An Existence Through the Lens

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

An International Career

He travelled the world as a independent or a employee for Fleet Street publications, covering major happenings including the fall of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkan region and across Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands conflict and four US presidential campaigns. He also created lyrical scenic views of the countryside around his Essex home.

According to his estimates he shot over 2m images, taking an average of 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He kept sharing archive and new images each day on social media until a short time before his death, and had been planning to give a talk on his career and experiences.

Notable Assignments

Tales from a rollercoaster career featured an costly business class flight in 1991 to attend 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 used to preserve the body.

His 1983’s images of the then Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, falling into the tide on Brighton beach were carried across eight columns of a leading page, and are regularly reproduced as a striking example of photo-opportunity hubris. His 2016 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’ most youthful staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and was based around the world for nearly a decade, including coverage of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he saw as editing of his most powerful images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was assembled to create a new newspaper. He played a key role in forming the style of journalistic photography that the paper was famous for, helping raise the bar for press images and newspaper design, in dramatic images covering multiple pages. Among numerous awards, he was named the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe recording the fall of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being made redundant in 1999, and significant projects thereafter included a year spent photographing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which led to an exhibition launched in London – where he gave a private viewing to Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a emotional book, Remembered.

Background and Beginnings

Harris was raised in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later helped his son build a photo lab in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family relocated eastwards – and up in the world – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended Chase Cross secondary modern school, acquiring useful skills in woodwork and metalwork, before departing at 16.

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

Peers and Legacy

Other photographers, often scooped by him, remembered his work as astonishing. A colleague, who collaborated with him in the early days, described him as “a great and fearless photographer”, an inspiration to a generation of junior colleagues. Another associate, a union representative, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki, whom he had initially encountered as a toddler in infant school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After learning of his illness, they went on a driving tour in Europe, posting sunny images of fine dining and good wine, and returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, completed a short time before his death, was to donate his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his preferred archive images he commented on a very young Harris drinking 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, both marriages concluded with divorce.

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