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

An International Career

He journeyed the world as a independent or a staffer for Fleet Street publications, documenting such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkan region and across Africa, the aftermath 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 took over two million images, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He continued posting archive and new images each day on online platforms 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 rollercoaster career featured an costly business class flight in 1991 to reach the burial in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from sunstroke and pneumonia and was treated with ice that had been employed to cool the body.

His 1983’s images of the then Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, toppling into the sea on Brighton beach were carried across multiple 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, was named after an exasperated John Major striking him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Professional Highlights

He became the a major newspaper’s most youthful 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 later stepped down over what he saw as censorship of his strongest images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was assembled to launch a major newspaper. He played a key role in forming the style of journalistic photography that the paper was famous for, helping set new standards for news photography and newspaper design, in dramatic images covering multiple pages. Among numerous awards, he was named the What the Papers Say photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc recording the fall of communism.

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

Early Life and Start

Harris was born in eastern 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 farther east – and up in the world – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended a local secondary modern school, acquiring practical skills in woodwork and metal crafting, before departing at 16.

At a central London agency, he quickly advanced from messenger boy to photographer, and launched his working life at east London local papers before progressing to major publications.

Colleagues and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as remarkable. A colleague, who worked with him in the initial stages, described him as “a superb and brave photographer”, an inspiration to a cohort 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 made contact through a online service with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had initially encountered as a toddler in infant school, and they became close companions through his final decades. After learning of his illness, they went on a road trip in Europe, sharing sunny images of fine dining and quality drinks, and revisiting significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, finished a short time before his death, was to donate his vast archive of five decades of work to a permanent home. Among his preferred historical photos he commented on a youthful Harris consuming generous servings of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a fortunate life I’ve had – no regrets and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was wed twice, each union ended in divorce.

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