Brian Harris Life Story: A Life Behind the Camera

The photojournalist Brian Harris, who passed away aged 73 of cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and eventually became one of the most respected British documentary photographers of his era.

An International Professional Journey

He journeyed the world as a independent or a employee for major British publications, covering major happenings including the collapse of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkans and across Africa, the consequences of the Falklands war and four US election campaigns. He also created poetic scenic views of the countryside around his Essex home.

By his own calculation he took over two million images, averaging 100 a day, but he stated that figure some years back. He continued posting historical and new images daily on social media up to a short time before his death, and had been arranging to deliver a lecture on his life and work.

Memorable Projects

Stories from a rollercoaster career featured an costly business class flight in 1991 to attend the burial in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from sunstroke 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, falling into the sea on Brighton beach were carried across eight columns of a leading page, and are often reprinted as a striking example of staged photo hubris. His 2016’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, took the title from an irritated John Major striking him with a folded briefing paper.

Professional Milestones

He was appointed as the Times’ 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 reporting of the end of the civil war 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 became chief photographer as the team was assembled to launch a major newspaper. He played a key role in shaping the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping set new standards for news photography and broadsheet design, in striking images filling multiple pages. Among many awards, he was honoured as the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe recording the fall of communism.

He operated independently after being made redundant in 1999, and major projects after that included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, which led to an exhibition launched in London – where he gave a personal tour to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Early Life and Beginnings

Harris was born in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later helped his son construct a darkroom in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family relocated farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to a local secondary modern school, acquiring useful skills in woodwork and metalwork, before departing at 16.

At a Fleet Street agency, he quickly advanced from delivery boy to photographer, and began his working life at east London local papers before moving on to major publications.

Colleagues and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often scooped by him, remembered his work as remarkable. Nick Turpin, who worked with him in the early days, described him as “a superb and fearless photographer”, an influence to a generation of junior colleagues. Tim Dawson, a union representative, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a online service with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had initially encountered as a three-year-old in infant school, and they became inseparable partners through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they went on a driving tour in Europe, sharing sunny images of good meals and quality drinks, and revisiting significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, finished a few weeks before his death, was to transfer his vast archive of five decades of work to a long-term repository. Among his favourite historical photos he reflected on a youthful Harris consuming 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 second marriage, Nikki’s daughter, Holly, and by his sister, Jan.