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The photographer B. Harris, who has died 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 journeyed the world as a independent or a employee for Fleet Street titles, covering such events as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkans and across Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands conflict and several US election campaigns. He also created lyrical scenic views of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he shot more than 2m images, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He kept sharing archive and new images each day on social media until a few weeks before his death, and had been planning to give a talk on his life and work.

Notable Assignments

Stories from a turbulent career featured an costly business class flight in 1991 to attend the funeral in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from sunstroke and pneumonia and was cooled down 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 sea on Brighton beach were published across eight columns of a front page, and are often reprinted as a striking example of photo-opportunity hubris. His 2016 memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, took the title from an irritated John Major hitting him with a folded briefing paper.

Professional Highlights

He was appointed as 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 civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he saw as censorship of his strongest images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was assembled to create a major newspaper. He played a key role in shaping the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping raise the bar for press images and broadsheet design, in dramatic images covering multiple pages. Among numerous awards, he was named the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc recording the collapse of communism.

He operated independently 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 Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a emotional book, Remembered.

Background and Beginnings

Harris was raised in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later assisted him construct a photo lab in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family relocated eastwards – and up in the world – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to Chase Cross secondary modern school, learning useful skills in carpentry and metalwork, before departing at 16.

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

Peers and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often outpaced by him, remembered his work as remarkable. A colleague, who worked with him in the initial stages, described him as “a superb and brave photographer”, an influence to a generation of junior colleagues. Another associate, a union representative, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris made contact through a website with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had initially encountered as a toddler in infant school, and they became inseparable partners through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they embarked on a road trip in Europe, sharing bright images of fine dining and good wine, and returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, finished a few weeks before his death, was to donate his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a permanent home. Among his preferred historical photos he reflected on a youthful Harris drinking large glasses 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 remembered by Nikki, his son Jacob, from his second marriage, Nikki’s daughter, Holly, and by his sister, Jan.