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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 UK documentary photographers of his era.

An International Career

He travelled across the globe as a independent or a staffer for Fleet Street publications, documenting such events as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkan region and throughout Africa, the consequences of the Falklands conflict and four US presidential campaigns. He also created lyrical scenic views of the rural areas around his Essex home.

According to his estimates he shot more than 2m photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He kept sharing historical and recent images daily on online platforms up to a short time before his death, and had been arranging to give a talk on his life and work.

Notable Projects

Stories from a turbulent career included an expenses-shredding premium flight in 1991 to attend the funeral in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from sunstroke and pneumonia and was cooled down with ice that had been used to preserve the body.

His 1983’s images of the then Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, falling into the tide on Brighton beach were carried across multiple 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.

Professional 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 nearly a decade, including coverage of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he saw as editing of his strongest images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was put together to create a major newspaper. He played a key role in shaping the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping raise the bar for news photography and newspaper design, in striking images filling multiple pages. Among numerous awards, he was honoured as the What the Papers Say photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc documenting the collapse of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being made redundant 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 resulted in 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 Start

Harris was raised in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later assisted him build a darkroom in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family relocated farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to a local secondary modern school, acquiring practical skills in carpentry and metalwork, before leaving at 16.

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

Peers and Legacy

Other photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as astonishing. A colleague, who worked with him in the initial stages, described him as “a great and fearless photographer”, an inspiration to a generation of young colleagues. Tim Dawson, a union representative, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris made contact through a online service with Nikki, whom he had initially encountered as a three-year-old in infant school, and they became close companions through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they went on a road trip in Europe, sharing sunny images of good meals 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 55 years’ work to a permanent home. Among his preferred archive images he reflected on a very young Harris drinking 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, each union ended in divorce.

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