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The photographer Brian Harris, who has died aged 73 from cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and went on to become one of the most respected UK documentary photographers of his era.

A Global Professional Journey

He travelled the world as a freelance or a staffer for major British titles, documenting major happenings including the collapse of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkan region and throughout Africa, the consequences of the Falklands war and four US presidential campaigns. He also created poetic landscapes of the countryside around his Essex home.

By his own calculation he shot more than two million photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He continued posting archive and new images daily on social media until a short time before his death, and had been arranging to give a talk on his career and experiences.

Notable Projects

Stories from a turbulent career featured an costly premium 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, toppling into the sea on Brighton beach were published across eight columns of a leading page, and are regularly reproduced as a striking example of staged photo hubris. His 2016 memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, took the title from an exasperated John Major hitting him with a folded briefing paper.

Career Highlights

He became the a major newspaper’s most youthful staff photographer when he joined the paper in 1976, at the age of 26, and worked around the world for nearly a decade, including reporting of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he considered censorship of his strongest images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was put together to create a major newspaper. He played a key role in forming the style of editorial photography that the paper was famous for, helping set new standards for press images and newspaper design, in dramatic images filling multiple 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 documenting the collapse of communism.

He operated independently after being let go in 1999, and major 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 eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later helped his son construct a photo lab in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family moved farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended Chase Cross secondary modern school, learning practical skills in woodwork and metalwork, before departing at 16.

At a central London 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.

Colleagues and Impact

Fellow photographers, often outpaced by him, remembered his work as astonishing. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the initial stages, described him as “a great and brave photographer”, an influence to a generation of junior colleagues. Another associate, a freelance organiser, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a online service with Nikki, whom he had initially encountered as a toddler in primary school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After learning of his illness, they went on a driving tour in Europe, sharing bright images of good meals and quality drinks, and returning to important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a few weeks before his demise, was to transfer his extensive collection of five decades of work to a permanent home. Among his preferred historical photos he reflected on a youthful Harris consuming large glasses of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a fortunate life I’ve had – no regrets and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was married twice, both marriages concluded with divorce.

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