Esteemed Photographer Brian Harris Obituary: A Life Behind the Camera

The photographer Brian Harris, who passed away at the age of 73 from cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to become a messenger boy, and eventually became among the most esteemed British photojournalists of his era.

A Global Professional Journey

He travelled the world as a independent or a staffer for major British publications, covering major happenings including the fall 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 consequences of the Falklands conflict 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 shot over 2m photographs, taking an average of 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He kept sharing historical and new images daily on online platforms until a few weeks before his passing, and had been planning to deliver a lecture on his life and work.

Memorable Projects

Stories from a rollercoaster career included an expenses-shredding premium flight in 1991 to attend the burial in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed from sunstroke and pneumonia and was cooled down 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 tide on Brighton beach were carried across multiple columns of a front page, and are often reprinted as a striking example of photo-opportunity hubris. His 2016’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, took the title from an irritated John Major striking him with a folded briefing paper.

Professional Milestones

He was appointed as the Times’ 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 coverage of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he saw as editing of his strongest images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was assembled to launch a major newspaper. He was instrumental in forming the style of editorial photography that the paper was famous for, helping set new standards for news photography 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 collapse 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 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.

Early Life and Start

Harris was raised in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later helped his son construct a photo lab in the garage. In the 1950s, the family relocated farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to Chase Cross secondary modern school, acquiring useful skills in carpentry and metalwork, before leaving at 16.

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

Peers and Legacy

Other photographers, often scooped by him, remembered his work as remarkable. A colleague, who worked with him in the initial stages, called him “a superb and fearless photographer”, an inspiration 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 website with Nikki, whom he had first met as a toddler in infant school, and they became close companions through his remaining years. After learning of his illness, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, sharing bright images of fine dining and good wine, and revisiting important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, finished a short time before his death, was to donate his vast archive of five decades of work to a permanent home. Among his preferred historical photos he commented on a very young Harris drinking generous servings 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 concluded with divorce.

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