The photographer Brian Harris, who passed away aged 73 of cancer, left school at 16 to become a messenger boy, and went on to become one of the most respected UK photojournalists of his era.
A Global Career
He travelled across the globe as a freelance or a employee for Fleet Street publications, covering such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkans and throughout Africa, the consequences of the Falklands conflict and several US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced lyrical landscapes of the countryside around his home county of Essex home.
According to his estimates he shot more than two million photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He continued posting historical and new images each day on social media until a few weeks before his death, and had been arranging to give a talk on his career and experiences.Notable Assignments
Tales from a rollercoaster career included an expenses-shredding business class flight in 1991 to reach the burial in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from heatstroke and pneumonia and was cooled down 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 published across multiple columns of a front page, and are regularly reproduced as a hideous example of staged photo hubris. His 2016’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, was named after an irritated John Major hitting him with a folded briefing paper.
Professional Milestones
He was appointed as the Times’ youngest ever staff photographer when he joined the paper in 1976, at the age of 26, and worked 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 famine in Africa.
In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was put together to create a major newspaper. He was instrumental in shaping the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping set new standards for press images and broadsheet design, in dramatic images covering multiple pages. Among many awards, he was named the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe documenting the fall of communism.
He operated independently after being made redundant in 1999, and significant projects thereafter included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, which resulted in an exhibition launched in London – where he gave a personal tour to Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a emotional book, Remembered.
Background and Beginnings
Harris was raised in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later assisted him 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 attended Chase Cross secondary modern school, acquiring practical skills in carpentry and metal crafting, before leaving at 16.
At a Fleet Street agency, he quickly advanced from messenger boy to photographer, and began his working life at eastern London local papers before progressing to national publications.
Colleagues and Legacy
Fellow 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 influence to a cohort of junior colleagues. Another associate, a union representative, 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 primary school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After learning of his illness, they went on a driving tour in Europe, posting bright images of fine dining and quality drinks, and returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.
His last task, completed a short time before his death, was to donate his extensive collection of five decades of work to a long-term repository. Among his preferred archive images he reflected on a youthful Harris consuming large glasses of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a blessed life I’ve had – no regrets and no ‘Must Do’s’”.
He was wed twice, both marriages concluded with divorce.
He is remembered by Nikki, his son Jacob, from his later union, Nikki’s daughter, Holly, and by his sister, Jan.
