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The photographer Brian Harris, who has died aged 73 from cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and eventually became among the most esteemed British documentary photographers of his era.

A Global Professional Journey

He journeyed the world as a independent or a staffer for Fleet Street publications, covering such events as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkans and across Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands conflict and four US presidential campaigns. He also created poetic scenic views of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

By his own calculation he shot over 2m 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 death, and had been arranging to deliver a lecture on his life and work.

Memorable Assignments

Tales from a rollercoaster career featured an costly premium flight in 1991 to reach the burial in India of the slain politician 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 then 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 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 hitting him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Professional Highlights

He was appointed as the a major newspaper’s 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 coverage of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he considered censorship of his most powerful images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was assembled to create a major newspaper. He was instrumental in shaping the style of journalistic photography that the paper was famous for, helping set new standards for press images and broadsheet design, in dramatic images filling multiple pages. Among numerous awards, he was named the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe recording the fall of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being made redundant in 1999, and significant projects thereafter included a year spent photographing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, which led to an display launched in London – where he gave a personal tour to Queen Elizabeth II 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 electrician who later helped his son construct a darkroom in the garage. In the 1950s, the family relocated farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to Chase Cross secondary modern school, acquiring useful skills in carpentry and metal crafting, before leaving at 16.

At a central London agency, he rose rapidly from messenger boy to photographer, and began his working life at east London local papers before progressing to national publications.

Colleagues and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often scooped by him, remembered his work as astonishing. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the early days, described him as “a superb and brave photographer”, an inspiration to a generation of junior colleagues. Tim Dawson, a freelance organiser, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had first met as a three-year-old in infant school, and they became close companions through his remaining years. After learning of his illness, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, posting bright images of good meals and good wine, and returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, finished a few weeks before his death, was to donate his extensive collection of five decades of work to a long-term repository. Among his favourite historical photos he commented on a very young Harris consuming generous servings of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a blessed life I’ve had – no regrets and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was married 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.