Brian Harris Obituary: A Life Through the Camera

The photojournalist Brian Harris, who has died at the age of 73 of cancer, left school at 16 to become a messenger boy, and eventually became among the most esteemed UK photojournalists of his era.

An International Professional Journey

He travelled the world as a freelance or a staffer for major British publications, documenting major happenings including the fall of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkan region and across Africa, the consequences of the Falklands war and several US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic scenic views of the countryside around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he shot over 2m photographs, taking an average of 100 a day, but he stated that figure several years ago. He kept sharing archive and recent 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.

Memorable Assignments

Tales from a turbulent career included an expenses-shredding business class flight in 1991 to attend the funeral in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from sunstroke 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 regularly reproduced as a striking example of photo-opportunity hubris. His 2016 memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, was named after an exasperated John Major striking him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Career Highlights

He was appointed as the a major newspaper’s youngest ever staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and worked around the world for nearly a decade, including reporting of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he considered censorship of his most powerful images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was assembled to create a major newspaper. He was instrumental in forming the style of editorial photography that the paper was famous for, helping set new standards for press images and broadsheet design, in dramatic images covering front and back pages. Among numerous awards, he was named the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe documenting the fall of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being made redundant in 1999, and major projects after that included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which led to an exhibition launched in London – where he gave a personal tour to Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Background and Beginnings

Harris was born in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician 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 attended Chase Cross secondary modern school, learning practical skills in carpentry and metalwork, before leaving at 16.

At a Fleet Street photo agency, he quickly advanced from delivery boy to photographer, and launched his professional career at eastern London local papers before progressing to national publications.

Peers and Impact

Other photographers, often outpaced by him, recalled his work as astonishing. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the initial stages, called him “a superb and fearless photographer”, an influence to a cohort of young colleagues. Another associate, a freelance organiser, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris made contact through a online service with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had first met as a toddler in infant school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they went on a road trip in Europe, posting sunny images of fine dining and good wine, and revisiting significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, finished a short time before his demise, was to donate his vast archive of five decades of work to a permanent home. Among his preferred archive images he reflected on a very young 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 later union, Nikki’s daughter, Holly, and by his sister, Jan.