🔗 Share this article Brian Harris Life Story: An Existence Behind the Lens The photographer Brian Harris, who passed away aged 73 of cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to work as a courier, and went on to become one of the most respected UK photojournalists of his era. An International Career He journeyed the world as a freelance or a staffer for Fleet Street titles, documenting major happenings including the fall of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkans and across Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands conflict and four US election campaigns. He also created poetic scenic views of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home. By his own calculation he took over two million photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he stated that figure some years back. He kept sharing historical and recent images each day on online platforms up to a short time before his death, and had been planning to deliver a lecture on his life and work. Memorable Projects Tales from a rollercoaster career featured an expenses-shredding premium flight in 1991 to reach the burial in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed 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, toppling into the tide on Brighton beach were carried across multiple columns of a front page, and are often reprinted as a hideous example of photo-opportunity hubris. His 2016 memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, was named after an irritated John Major hitting him with a folded briefing paper. Career 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 almost ten years, including reporting of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he considered censorship of his most powerful images of starvation in Africa. In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was put together to launch a major newspaper. He was instrumental in shaping 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 many awards, he was named 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 made redundant in 1999, and significant projects after that included a year spent photographing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which led to an display launched in London – where he gave a personal tour to the Queen 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 electrician who later assisted him construct a darkroom in the garage. In the 1950s, the family moved farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended a local secondary modern school, learning practical skills in carpentry and metalwork, before leaving at 16. At a Fleet Street photo agency, he rose rapidly from messenger boy to photographer, and began his working life at east London local papers before moving on to national publications. Peers and Impact Fellow photographers, often outpaced by him, remembered his work as astonishing. A colleague, who worked with him in the early days, called him “a great and brave photographer”, an inspiration to a generation of young colleagues. Another associate, a freelance organiser, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”. Private World In 2001 Harris reconnected through a online service with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had first met as a three-year-old in primary school, and they became inseparable partners through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they embarked on a road trip in Europe, sharing bright images of good meals and good wine, and revisiting important sites including Dresden and Ypres. His last task, completed a short time before his demise, was to transfer his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his favourite historical photos he reflected on a youthful 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 wed twice, each union ended in divorce. He is survived by Nikki, his son Jacob, from his second marriage, Nikki’s daughter, Holly, and by his sister, Jan.