Esteemed Photographer Brian Harris Life Story: An Existence Behind the Lens

The photojournalist Brian Harris, who has died aged 73 from cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to become a messenger boy, and went on to become one of the most respected UK photojournalists of his generation.

A Global Professional Journey

He journeyed the world as a independent or a employee for major British titles, documenting major happenings including the fall of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkans and across Africa, the consequences of the Falklands war and four US election campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic landscapes of the rural areas around his Essex home.

According to his estimates he shot over 2m photographs, taking an average of 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He kept sharing historical and recent images daily on online platforms until a short time before his passing, and had been arranging to deliver a lecture on his life and work.

Memorable Assignments

Tales from a rollercoaster career included an costly business class flight in 1991 to reach the burial in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from sunstroke and pneumonia and was cooled down with ice that had been used to preserve the body.

His 1983 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 eight columns of a leading page, and are often reprinted as a striking 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 rolled-up briefing paper.

Professional Highlights

He became 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 reporting of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he considered editing of his most powerful images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was put together to launch a major newspaper. He played a key role in shaping the style of editorial photography that the paper became known for, helping raise the bar for news photography and newspaper 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 eastern Europe documenting the collapse of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being let go in 1999, and significant projects after that included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, which led to an display launched in London – where he gave a private viewing to Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Background and Start

Harris was born in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later helped his son build a photo lab in the garage. In the 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, learning practical skills in woodwork and metalwork, before leaving at 16.

At a central London photo agency, he rose rapidly from delivery boy to photographer, and began his professional career at east London local papers before progressing to major publications.

Colleagues and Impact

Other photographers, often outpaced by him, remembered his work as astonishing. A colleague, who collaborated with him in the early days, described him as “a superb and brave photographer”, an inspiration to a cohort of young colleagues. Tim Dawson, a union representative, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had initially encountered 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 fine dining and good wine, and revisiting significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a short time before his demise, was to donate his extensive collection of five decades of 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 wed twice, each union concluded with divorce.

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