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The photographer Brian Harris, who has died at the age of 73 of cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and went on to become among the most esteemed British photojournalists of his generation.

A Global Professional Journey

He travelled across the globe as a freelance or a employee for major British titles, covering such events as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkans and across Africa, the consequences of the Falklands war and several US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic scenic views of the rural areas around his Essex home.

By his own calculation he took over two million photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he stated that figure several years ago. He kept sharing archive and new images daily on online platforms up to a few weeks before his death, and had been arranging to deliver a lecture on his life and work.

Notable Assignments

Tales from a rollercoaster career featured an costly business class flight in 1991 to reach 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, toppling into the sea on Brighton beach were carried across multiple columns of a leading page, and are often reprinted as a hideous example of staged photo hubris. His 2016 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 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 reporting of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he saw as censorship of his most powerful images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was put together to launch a major newspaper. He was instrumental in forming the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping raise the bar for press images and broadsheet design, in striking images filling front and back pages. Among many 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 operated independently after being made redundant in 1999, and major projects thereafter included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, which resulted in an exhibition launched in London – where he gave a personal tour to Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a emotional book, Remembered.

Early Life and Start

Harris was raised in east 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 moved farther east – and up in the world – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to a local secondary modern school, acquiring useful skills in carpentry and metal crafting, before leaving at 16.

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

Peers and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often outpaced by him, recalled his work as remarkable. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the early days, described him as “a great and brave photographer”, an influence to a generation of junior colleagues. Another associate, a union representative, said he “reimagined 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 three-year-old in infant school, and they became inseparable partners through his final decades. After learning of his illness, they went on a road trip in Europe, posting bright images of good meals and good wine, and returning to important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, completed a short time before his demise, was to donate his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a permanent home. Among his favourite archive images he reflected on a youthful Harris consuming 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 wed twice, each union ended in divorce.

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