🔗 Share this article Esteemed Photographer Brian Harris Obituary: An Existence Through the Lens The photojournalist Brian Harris, who passed away aged 73 from cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and went on to become among the most esteemed UK documentary photographers of his era. A Global Career He journeyed the world as a freelance or a staffer for Fleet Street titles, covering such events as 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 four US election campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic scenic views of the countryside around his home county of Essex home. According to his estimates he took more than two million photographs, taking an average of 100 a day, but he stated that figure some years back. He kept sharing historical and new images daily on social media up to a few weeks before his death, and had been planning to deliver a lecture on his life and work. Notable Projects Tales from a rollercoaster career included an expenses-shredding business class flight in 1991 to reach the burial in India of the assassinated leader 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 then 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 regularly reproduced as a hideous example of staged photo hubris. His 2016 memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, took the title from an exasperated John Major striking him with a rolled-up briefing paper. Professional Milestones He became the a major newspaper’s most youthful staff photographer when he started there 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 considered censorship of his strongest images of famine in Africa. In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was put together to create a new newspaper. He was instrumental in forming the style of editorial photography that the paper was famous for, helping raise the bar for press images and newspaper design, in dramatic images filling multiple pages. Among numerous awards, he was named 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 operated independently after being let go in 1999, and major projects after that 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 the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a emotional book, Remembered. Early Life and Beginnings Harris was raised in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later assisted him build a photo lab in the garage. In the 1950s, the family moved farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended Chase Cross secondary modern school, learning practical skills in carpentry and metal crafting, before leaving at 16. At a central London photo agency, he rose rapidly from delivery boy to photographer, and launched his working life at eastern London local papers before progressing to national publications. Colleagues and Impact Fellow photographers, often outpaced by him, remembered his work as astonishing. A colleague, who worked with him in the initial stages, described him as “a great and brave photographer”, an inspiration to a cohort of young colleagues. Tim Dawson, a freelance organiser, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”. Private World In 2001 Harris reconnected through a online service with Nikki, whom he had initially encountered as a three-year-old in infant 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 quality drinks, and revisiting significant sites including Dresden and Ypres. His final project, completed a few weeks before his death, was to transfer his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a permanent home. Among his preferred archive images he reflected on a youthful Harris drinking large glasses of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a blessed life I’ve had – no regrets and no ‘Must Do’s’”. He was wed 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.