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The photojournalist Brian Harris, who has died aged 73 from cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and eventually became one of the most respected British photojournalists of his era.

An International Professional Journey

He travelled across the globe as a freelance or a staffer for Fleet Street publications, covering such events as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkan region and across Africa, the consequences of the Falklands conflict and several US presidential campaigns. He also created poetic landscapes of the rural areas around his Essex home.

By his own calculation he shot over two million images, taking an average of 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He kept sharing archive and new images daily on social media up to a short time before his death, and had been planning to give a talk on his career and experiences.

Notable Assignments

Stories from a turbulent career included an costly premium flight in 1991 to attend 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 used to preserve 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 multiple columns of a leading page, and are often reprinted as a hideous example of staged photo hubris. His 2016 memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, took the title from an exasperated John Major striking him with a folded briefing paper.

Professional Highlights

He was appointed as the Times’ most youthful staff photographer when he joined the paper 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 later stepped down over what he saw as censorship of his most powerful images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head 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 became known for, helping set new standards for press images and newspaper design, in dramatic images filling multiple pages. Among many awards, he was named the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe recording the collapse of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being let go in 1999, and major projects after that included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, which led to an display launched in London – where he gave a private viewing to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a emotional book, Remembered.

Early Life and Beginnings

Harris was raised in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later helped his son construct a photo lab in the garage. In the mid 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, acquiring useful skills in carpentry and metal crafting, before leaving at 16.

At a Fleet Street agency, he rose rapidly from messenger boy to photographer, and launched his professional career at eastern London local papers before moving on to national publications.

Colleagues and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often outpaced by him, remembered his work as astonishing. Nick Turpin, who worked with him in the early days, called him “a superb and brave photographer”, an influence to a generation of young colleagues. Tim Dawson, a union representative, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a online service with Nikki, whom he had first met as a three-year-old in primary school, and they became inseparable partners through his final decades. After learning of his illness, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, sharing sunny images of fine dining and good wine, and revisiting important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a few weeks before his death, was to transfer his extensive collection of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his preferred archive images he commented on a youthful Harris drinking generous servings of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a fortunate life I’ve had – no regrets and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was married twice, both marriages concluded with divorce.

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