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

The photographer B. Harris, who passed away aged 73 from cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to become a messenger boy, and eventually became one of the most respected UK documentary photographers of his generation.

An International Career

He travelled across the globe as a independent or a employee for major British titles, covering such events as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, famine 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 poetic scenic views of the rural areas around his Essex home.

By his own calculation he took over 2m photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He kept sharing archive and new images daily on social media until a few weeks before his death, and had been planning to deliver a lecture on his life and work.

Notable Assignments

Stories from a turbulent career included an costly business class flight in 1991 to attend the funeral in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from heatstroke 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, falling into the tide on Brighton beach were published across multiple columns of a leading page, and are often reprinted as a hideous example of staged photo hubris. His 2016’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, was named after an exasperated John Major striking him with a folded briefing paper.

Career Highlights

He became the Times’ most youthful staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and worked around the world for nearly a decade, including coverage of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he saw as censorship of his strongest images of starvation 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 was famous for, helping raise the bar for news photography and broadsheet design, in striking images covering front and back pages. Among numerous awards, he was honoured as the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc recording 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 war memorial organisation, which led to an exhibition launched in London – where he gave a personal tour to Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a emotional book, Remembered.

Early Life and Beginnings

Harris was born in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later helped his son build a photo lab in the garage. In the 1950s, the family relocated eastwards – and to a better area – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended Chase Cross secondary modern school, acquiring practical skills in woodwork and metal crafting, 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 moving on to national publications.

Peers and Impact

Other photographers, often outpaced by him, recalled his work as remarkable. A colleague, who worked with him in the initial stages, called him “a superb and brave photographer”, an influence to a cohort of junior colleagues. Tim Dawson, a union representative, said he “reimagined 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 learning of his illness, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, posting sunny images of good meals and quality drinks, and returning to important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, finished a few weeks before his death, was to transfer his vast archive of five decades of work to a permanent home. Among his preferred historical photos he reflected on a very young 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 wed twice, each union concluded with divorce.

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