Brian Harris Life Story: A Life Behind the Camera

The photographer Brian Harris, who passed away at the age of 73 from cancer, left school at 16 to become a messenger boy, and eventually became among the most esteemed British photojournalists of his era.

A Global Career

He journeyed the world as a independent or a employee for Fleet Street titles, documenting such events as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkan region and across Africa, the consequences of the Falklands conflict and four US presidential campaigns. He also created lyrical scenic views of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

By his own calculation he shot more than 2m images, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He kept sharing historical and new images daily on online platforms up to a short time before his passing, and had been planning to give a talk on his life and work.

Memorable Assignments

Stories from a turbulent career featured an expenses-shredding business class flight in 1991 to attend the burial in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed from sunstroke and pneumonia and was treated with ice that had been used to preserve the body.

His 1983’s 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 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 was appointed as 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 reporting of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he considered censorship of his strongest images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was assembled to create a major newspaper. He played a key role 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 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 fall 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 exhibition launched in London – where he gave a private viewing to Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Early Life and Beginnings

Harris was raised in east 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 relocated farther east – and up in the world – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended Chase Cross secondary modern school, acquiring useful skills in carpentry and metalwork, before departing at 16.

At a Fleet Street photo agency, he rose rapidly from messenger boy to photographer, and launched his working life at eastern London local papers before moving on to national publications.

Peers and Impact

Other photographers, often outpaced by him, recalled his work as astonishing. Nick Turpin, who worked with him in the initial stages, described him as “a superb and brave photographer”, an influence to a cohort of junior colleagues. Another associate, a union representative, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki, whom he had first met as a toddler in primary school, and they became close companions through his remaining years. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they went on a driving tour in Europe, posting bright images of good meals and good wine, and revisiting important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a few weeks before his demise, was to donate his extensive collection of five decades of work to a permanent home. Among his favourite archive images 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 regrets 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.