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The photographer B. Harris, who has died aged 73 of cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to work as a courier, and went on to become among the most esteemed UK documentary photographers of his era.

A Global Professional Journey

He journeyed the world as a independent or a employee for major British publications, documenting such events as the fall 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 several US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic landscapes of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he took more than 2m photographs, taking an average of 100 a day, but he stated that figure some years back. He continued posting historical and new images each day on online platforms up to a few weeks before his death, and had been planning to deliver a lecture on his life and work.

Notable Assignments

Tales from a rollercoaster career featured an expenses-shredding business class flight in 1991 to attend the burial in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed from sunstroke 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 carried across multiple columns of a leading page, and are often reprinted as a striking example of staged photo hubris. His 2016 memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, was named after an irritated John Major hitting him with a rolled-up 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 coverage of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he saw as censorship of his strongest images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was assembled to create a new newspaper. He played a key role in shaping the style of editorial photography that the paper was famous for, helping set new standards for news photography and newspaper design, in striking images filling 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 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 resulted in an exhibition 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 born in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later assisted him construct a photo lab in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family relocated eastwards – and up in the world – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to Chase Cross secondary modern school, acquiring practical skills in woodwork and metalwork, before departing at 16.

At a central London photo agency, he rose rapidly from delivery boy to photographer, and began his working life at eastern London local papers before moving on to national publications.

Peers and Impact

Fellow photographers, often outpaced by him, recalled his work as remarkable. A colleague, who collaborated with him in the early days, called him “a great and fearless photographer”, an influence to a generation of junior colleagues. Tim Dawson, a freelance organiser, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a online service with Nikki, whom he had first met as a toddler in primary school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they went on a road trip in Europe, sharing bright images of fine dining and good wine, and returning to important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, completed a short time before his demise, was to transfer his extensive collection of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his favourite historical photos he commented on a very young Harris consuming large glasses of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a fortunate life I’ve had – no remorse and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was married twice, both marriages concluded with divorce.

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