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The photojournalist B. Harris, who has died aged 73 of cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and went on to become among the most esteemed British photojournalists of his generation.

A Global Career

He travelled across the globe as a freelance or a employee 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 Balkans and across Africa, the consequences of the Falklands conflict and four US election campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic landscapes of the countryside around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he took over 2m photographs, taking an average of 100 a day, but he stated that figure several years ago. He continued posting historical and recent images daily on social media until a few weeks before his passing, and had been arranging to deliver a lecture on his life and work.

Memorable Assignments

Stories from a turbulent career featured an expenses-shredding business class flight in 1991 to reach the burial in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from heatstroke and pneumonia and was treated with ice that had been used to preserve 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 eight columns of a front page, and are regularly reproduced as a striking example of photo-opportunity hubris. His 2016’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, took the title from an exasperated John Major striking him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Career Milestones

He became 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 later stepped down over what he considered editing of his strongest images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was put together to create a new newspaper. He was instrumental in forming the style of editorial photography that the paper became known for, helping raise the bar for news photography and broadsheet design, in striking images covering front and back pages. Among many awards, he was named 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 capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which resulted in 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 technician who later helped his son construct a darkroom in the garage. In the 1950s, the family relocated eastwards – and to a better area – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to a local secondary modern school, learning practical skills in carpentry and metal crafting, before departing at 16.

At a Fleet Street agency, he rose rapidly from messenger boy to photographer, and launched his professional career at east London local papers before moving on to major publications.

Colleagues and Legacy

Other photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as remarkable. A colleague, who worked with him in the early days, described him as “a superb and fearless photographer”, an inspiration to a generation of junior colleagues. Another associate, 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, whom he had initially encountered as a three-year-old in primary school, and they became close companions through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they went on a driving tour in Europe, sharing bright images of fine dining and quality drinks, and returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, finished a short time before his death, was to transfer his vast archive of five decades of work to a long-term repository. Among his preferred archive images he commented on a very young Harris drinking generous servings of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a blessed 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.