🔗 Share this article

The photojournalist B. Harris, who has died at the age of 73 of cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to become a messenger boy, and eventually became among the most esteemed British photojournalists of his generation.

A Global Professional Journey

He journeyed across the globe as a freelance or a employee for Fleet Street publications, covering major happenings including the fall of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkans and throughout Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands war and four US election campaigns. He also created lyrical landscapes of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he took more than two million images, taking an average of 100 a day, but he stated that figure several years ago. He kept sharing archive and new images daily on online platforms until a short time before his death, and had been arranging to deliver a lecture on his career and experiences.

Notable Assignments

Stories from a rollercoaster career included an expenses-shredding business class flight in 1991 to reach 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’s images of the then Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, toppling into the tide 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, was named after an exasperated John Major hitting him with a folded briefing paper.

Professional Milestones

He was appointed as the a major newspaper’s most youthful staff photographer when he joined the paper in 1976, at the age of 26, and worked around the world for almost ten years, including coverage of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he saw as censorship of his most powerful images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was put together to launch a major newspaper. He was instrumental in forming the style of editorial photography that the paper became known for, helping set new standards for news photography and broadsheet design, in dramatic images filling front and back 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 documenting the collapse of communism.

He operated independently after being made redundant in 1999, and significant projects thereafter 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 raised in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later helped his son build a photo lab in the garage. In the 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 carpentry and metalwork, before leaving at 16.

At a central London photo agency, he quickly advanced from messenger boy to photographer, and launched his working life at east London local papers before progressing to major publications.

Colleagues and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often outpaced by him, recalled his work as remarkable. A colleague, who worked with him in the initial stages, described him as “a great and fearless photographer”, an inspiration to a cohort of young colleagues. Another associate, a union representative, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris made contact through a online service with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had initially encountered as a three-year-old in infant school, and they became close companions through his final decades. After learning of his illness, they went on a road trip in Europe, sharing sunny images of fine dining and good wine, and revisiting important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, finished a short time before his demise, was to donate his extensive collection of five decades of work to a long-term repository. Among his favourite historical photos he reflected on a youthful Harris consuming 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 married twice, both marriages ended in divorce.

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