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The photojournalist Brian Harris, who has died aged 73 of cancer, left school at 16 to become a messenger boy, and eventually became one of the most respected British documentary photographers of his era.

A Global Career

He journeyed across the globe as a freelance or a staffer for Fleet Street titles, documenting such events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger 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. Additionally, he produced poetic landscapes of the rural areas around his Essex home.

By his own calculation he shot over 2m images, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He continued posting historical and recent images each day on social media up to a few weeks before his passing, and had been planning to deliver a lecture on his career and experiences.

Notable Projects

Tales from a rollercoaster career included an costly business class flight in 1991 to reach the funeral 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 at that time Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, toppling into the tide on Brighton beach were published across eight columns of a leading page, and are often reprinted as a hideous example of photo-opportunity hubris. His 2016’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, took the title from an irritated John Major hitting him with a folded briefing paper.

Career Milestones

He became the a major newspaper’s youngest ever staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and worked around the world for nearly a decade, including coverage of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he considered editing of his strongest images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was put together to launch a new newspaper. He was instrumental in forming the style of editorial photography that the paper was famous for, helping raise the bar for news photography and broadsheet design, in striking images filling multiple pages. Among many awards, he was named the What the Papers Say photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe documenting the fall of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being made redundant in 1999, and major projects thereafter included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which led to 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 east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later assisted him build a darkroom in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family moved farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to a local secondary modern school, learning practical skills in carpentry and metalwork, before leaving at 16.

At a central London photo agency, he quickly advanced from delivery boy to photographer, and began his working life at eastern London local papers before moving on to national publications.

Peers and Impact

Other photographers, often outpaced by him, remembered his work as astonishing. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the initial stages, called him “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 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 road trip in Europe, posting sunny images of fine dining and good wine, and revisiting significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a few weeks before his death, was to transfer his extensive collection of five decades of work to a long-term repository. Among his preferred archive images he commented on a youthful Harris consuming 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 wed twice, each union ended in divorce.

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