Brian Harris Obituary: A Life Through the Camera

The photojournalist B. Harris, who has died at the age of 73 of cancer, left school at 16 to become a messenger boy, and went on to become among the most esteemed British photojournalists of his era.

An International Career

He journeyed the world as a independent or a employee for Fleet Street titles, covering major happenings including the collapse of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkans and across Africa, the consequences of the Falklands war and several US election campaigns. He also created poetic scenic views of the rural areas around his Essex home.

According to his estimates he shot over two million images, taking an average of 100 a day, but he stated that figure several years ago. He kept sharing archive and recent images each day on social media up to a short time before his death, and had been arranging to give a talk on his career and experiences.

Notable Projects

Tales from a rollercoaster career included an costly premium flight in 1991 to attend the funeral in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from heatstroke and pneumonia and was treated with ice that had been employed to cool 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 front page, and are often reprinted as a hideous example of staged photo hubris. His 2016 memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, was named after an irritated John Major striking him with a folded briefing paper.

Career Highlights

He was appointed as the Times’ 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 coverage of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he considered censorship of his most powerful images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was assembled to launch a new newspaper. He was instrumental in shaping the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping set new standards for news photography and newspaper design, in dramatic images filling front and back 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 fall of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being made redundant in 1999, and significant projects thereafter included a year spent photographing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, 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 Beginnings

Harris was born in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later assisted him build a darkroom in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family moved farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended a local secondary modern school, acquiring useful skills in woodwork and metalwork, before leaving at 16.

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

Colleagues and Legacy

Other photographers, often outpaced by him, recalled his work as remarkable. Nick Turpin, who worked with him in the initial stages, called him “a great and fearless photographer”, an influence to a generation of young colleagues. Another associate, a freelance organiser, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Personal Life

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 learning of his illness, they went on a driving tour in Europe, posting sunny images of fine dining and good wine, and revisiting important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, completed a few weeks before his demise, was to donate his extensive collection of five decades of work to a permanent home. Among his favourite historical photos he reflected on a youthful Harris consuming 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, each union concluded with divorce.

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