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The photographer Brian Harris, who has died aged 73 of cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to work as a courier, and eventually became among the most esteemed British photojournalists of his generation.

A Global Career

He travelled the world as a independent or a staffer for major British titles, covering such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkan region and throughout Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands war and several US presidential campaigns. He also created lyrical landscapes of the countryside around his Essex home.

By his own calculation he shot over two million photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He continued posting archive and new images daily on online platforms up to a short time before his passing, and had been planning to deliver a lecture on his life and work.

Notable Projects

Stories from a rollercoaster career featured an expenses-shredding business class flight in 1991 to reach the funeral in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from sunstroke and pneumonia and was cooled down with ice that had been employed to cool the body.

His 1983’s images of the at that time Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, falling into the sea on Brighton beach were carried across multiple columns of a leading page, and are often reprinted as a striking example of staged photo hubris. His 2016’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, was named after an exasperated John Major hitting him with a folded briefing paper.

Career Milestones

He became the Times’ youngest ever staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and was based around the world for almost ten years, including coverage of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he considered censorship of his most powerful images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was put together to create a new newspaper. He played a key role in shaping the style of editorial photography that the paper became known for, helping set new standards for press images 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 the former Eastern Bloc documenting the fall of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being let go in 1999, and significant projects after that included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, which led to an display launched in London – where he gave a private viewing to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Early Life and Start

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

At a Fleet Street 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 Legacy

Fellow photographers, often outpaced by him, recalled his work as remarkable. A colleague, who collaborated with him in the early days, described him as “a superb and brave photographer”, an influence to a cohort of junior 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, whom he had initially encountered as a three-year-old in infant school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After learning of his illness, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, sharing bright images of fine dining and quality drinks, and revisiting significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, finished a short time before his demise, was to donate his extensive collection of five decades of work to a long-term repository. Among his preferred archive images he reflected on a very young Harris consuming generous servings of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a fortunate life I’ve had – no regrets and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was wed twice, each union ended in divorce.

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