🔗 Share this article

The photographer B. Harris, who passed away at the age of 73 from cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to work as a courier, and eventually became one of the most respected British photojournalists of his generation.

An International Career

He travelled the world as a independent or a employee for Fleet Street publications, documenting such events as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkan region and throughout Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands war and four US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic scenic views of the rural areas around his Essex home.

According to his estimates he took over two million images, taking an average of 100 a day, but he stated that figure some years back. He kept sharing historical and new images each day on online platforms until a short time before his death, and had been arranging to deliver a lecture on his life and work.

Memorable Assignments

Tales from a turbulent career featured an costly premium flight in 1991 to attend the burial in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from sunstroke 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 tide on Brighton beach were published across eight columns of a leading page, and are often reprinted as a striking example of photo-opportunity hubris. His 2016’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, was named after an exasperated John Major striking him with a folded briefing paper.

Career Milestones

He was appointed as the a major newspaper’s youngest ever 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 strongest images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was assembled to create a new newspaper. He was instrumental in shaping the style of journalistic photography that the paper was famous for, helping set new standards for news photography and newspaper design, in dramatic images filling front and back pages. Among many awards, he was honoured as the What the Papers Say photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc recording the fall of communism.

He operated independently after being let go in 1999, and major projects thereafter included a year spent photographing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, 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.

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 relocated farther east – and up in the world – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended Chase Cross secondary modern school, learning useful skills in woodwork and metal crafting, before departing at 16.

At a Fleet Street photo agency, he rose rapidly from messenger boy to photographer, and began his working life at east London local papers before moving on to major publications.

Colleagues and Legacy

Other photographers, often scooped by him, remembered his work as remarkable. A colleague, who worked with him in the early days, described him as “a great and fearless photographer”, an inspiration to a cohort of young colleagues. Tim Dawson, a freelance organiser, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a online service with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had first met as a toddler in primary school, and they became inseparable partners through his final decades. After learning of his illness, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, sharing sunny images of good meals and quality drinks, and returning to significant 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 long-term repository. Among his preferred historical photos he reflected on a very young Harris drinking generous servings of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a fortunate life I’ve had – no regrets and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was married twice, both marriages concluded with divorce.

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