Brian Harris Life Story: An Existence Behind the Lens

The photographer B. Harris, who has died aged 73 from cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to work as a courier, and went on to become among the most esteemed British documentary photographers of his era.

An International Career

He journeyed across the globe as a freelance or a staffer for major British titles, covering major happenings including the fall of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkan region and across Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands war and several US presidential campaigns. He also created poetic landscapes of the countryside around his Essex home.

By his own calculation he took over 2m images, taking an average of 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He continued posting historical and recent images each day on online platforms until a few weeks before his passing, and had been arranging to give a talk on his career and experiences.

Memorable Assignments

Tales from a rollercoaster career featured an expenses-shredding business class flight in 1991 to attend the funeral in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from heatstroke and pneumonia and was treated with ice that had been employed to cool the body.

His 1983’s images of the then Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, falling into the sea on Brighton beach were published across multiple columns of a front page, and are often reprinted as a hideous example of staged photo hubris. His 2016’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, took the title from an exasperated John Major striking him with a folded briefing paper.

Professional Highlights

He became 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 coverage of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he saw as editing of his strongest images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was assembled to launch a new newspaper. He played a key role 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 covering 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 collapse 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 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.

Background and Beginnings

Harris was born in eastern 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 farther east – and up in the world – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended a local secondary modern school, learning useful skills in woodwork and metalwork, before leaving at 16.

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

Colleagues and Impact

Other photographers, often outpaced by him, recalled his work as remarkable. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the initial stages, described him as “a great and brave photographer”, an influence to a generation of junior colleagues. Tim Dawson, a freelance organiser, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki, whom he had initially encountered as a three-year-old in infant school, and they became close companions through his remaining years. After learning of his illness, they went on a driving tour in Europe, posting bright images of good meals and good wine, and revisiting important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, finished a short time before his death, was to transfer his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his favourite archive images he commented on a very young Harris consuming large glasses of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a blessed life I’ve had – no remorse and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was married twice, both marriages concluded with divorce.

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