🔗 Share this article

The photographer B. Harris, who has died aged 73 of cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to become a messenger boy, and eventually became among the most esteemed UK photojournalists of his era.

A Global Career

He travelled the world as a independent or a employee for major British titles, covering major happenings including the collapse 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 consequences of the Falklands war and four US election campaigns. He also created lyrical scenic views of the countryside around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he shot over two million images, taking an average of 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 few weeks before his passing, and had been planning to give a talk on his life and work.

Notable Projects

Stories from a rollercoaster career featured an costly business class flight in 1991 to attend the burial in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed from heatstroke and pneumonia and was cooled down with ice that had been employed to cool 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 hideous example of photo-opportunity hubris. His 2016’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, was named after an exasperated John Major striking him with a rolled-up 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 was based around the world for nearly a decade, including reporting of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he saw as censorship of his most powerful images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was assembled to create a major newspaper. He played a key role in forming the style of journalistic photography that the paper was famous for, helping set new standards for news photography and broadsheet design, in dramatic images filling multiple pages. Among many awards, he was honoured as the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe documenting the fall of communism.

He operated independently after being made redundant in 1999, and significant projects thereafter included a year spent capturing 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 moving book, Remembered.

Background and Start

Harris was born in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later helped his son construct a darkroom in the garage. In the 1950s, the family relocated eastwards – and up in the world – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to a local secondary modern school, learning useful skills in woodwork and metalwork, before leaving at 16.

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

Colleagues and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often outpaced by him, recalled his work as astonishing. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the initial stages, called him “a superb 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”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a online service with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had initially encountered 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 road trip in Europe, sharing bright images of good meals and quality drinks, and revisiting significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a short time before his demise, was to transfer his vast archive 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, both marriages concluded with divorce.

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