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The photographer Brian Harris, who has died at the age of 73 of cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to become a messenger boy, and eventually became one of the most respected British photojournalists of his era.

An International Professional Journey

He journeyed across the globe as a independent or a employee for Fleet Street publications, 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 throughout Africa, the consequences of the Falklands conflict and several US presidential campaigns. He also created lyrical landscapes of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he took more than 2m photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He kept sharing historical and recent images each day on online platforms up to a short time before his passing, and had been arranging to give a talk on his career and experiences.

Notable Assignments

Tales from a rollercoaster career included an costly business class flight in 1991 to attend 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 images of the at that time 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 memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, took the title from an irritated John Major hitting 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 worked around the world for nearly a decade, including reporting of the end of the civil war 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 forming the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping raise the bar for news photography and newspaper design, in striking images covering front and back 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 documenting the fall of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being let go in 1999, and major projects thereafter included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, which resulted in 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 raised 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 moved eastwards – and up in the world – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended Chase Cross secondary modern school, learning practical skills in carpentry and metalwork, before departing at 16.

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

Peers and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often outpaced by him, remembered his work as astonishing. A colleague, who worked with him in the initial stages, described him as “a great and fearless photographer”, an inspiration to a cohort of young colleagues. Tim Dawson, a freelance organiser, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki, whom he had initially encountered as a toddler in infant school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After learning of his illness, they went on a road trip in Europe, sharing sunny images of good meals and quality drinks, and revisiting significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, completed a few weeks before his death, was to transfer his vast archive of five decades of work to a long-term repository. Among his favourite 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 married twice, each union concluded with divorce.

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