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The photographer Brian Harris, who has died at the age of 73 of cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to become a messenger boy, and eventually became among the most esteemed British documentary photographers of his era.

A Global Career

He journeyed across the globe as a freelance or a staffer for major British titles, documenting such events as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkans and throughout Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands war and four US presidential campaigns. He also created lyrical landscapes of the countryside around his Essex home.

According to his estimates he shot more than two million images, taking an average of 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He continued posting historical and new images daily on online platforms until a few weeks before his death, and had been planning to give a talk on his career and experiences.

Notable Assignments

Stories 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 heatstroke and pneumonia and was treated 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, falling into the tide on Brighton beach were published across eight columns of a leading page, and are regularly reproduced as a hideous example of staged photo hubris. His 2016 memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, was named after an exasperated John Major striking him with a folded briefing paper.

Career Milestones

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 almost ten years, including coverage of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he saw as censorship of his most powerful images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was assembled to launch 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 news photography and newspaper design, in dramatic images covering front and back pages. Among many awards, he was honoured as the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe documenting the collapse of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being let go in 1999, and major projects thereafter 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 personal tour to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Background 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 mid 1950s, the family relocated farther east – 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 carpentry and metalwork, before leaving at 16.

At a Fleet Street agency, he quickly advanced from messenger boy to photographer, and began his professional career at eastern London local papers before progressing to national publications.

Colleagues and Impact

Other photographers, often scooped by him, remembered his work as astonishing. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the early days, called him “a superb and fearless photographer”, an inspiration to a generation of young colleagues. Tim Dawson, a freelance organiser, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris made contact through a website with Nikki, whom he had initially encountered as a toddler in infant school, and they became close companions through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, sharing bright images of good meals and quality drinks, and returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, finished a few weeks before his demise, was to transfer his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a permanent home. Among his favourite archive images he commented on a youthful Harris drinking generous servings of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a fortunate life I’ve had – no remorse and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was wed twice, both marriages ended in divorce.

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