Brian Harris Life Story: A Life Behind the Camera

The photographer Brian Harris, who passed away at the age of 73 from cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to work as a courier, and went on to become one of the most respected UK documentary photographers of his era.

An International Career

He travelled the world as a freelance or a employee for major British titles, covering major happenings including the fall of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkans and throughout Africa, the consequences of the Falklands conflict and four US presidential campaigns. He also created poetic landscapes of the rural areas around his Essex home.

By his own calculation he shot more than two million photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he stated that figure some years back. He kept sharing archive and recent images daily on social media up to a few weeks before his death, and had been planning to deliver a lecture on his life and work.

Memorable Projects

Tales from a turbulent career featured an expenses-shredding 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 treated with ice that had been employed to cool the body.

His 1983’s images of the at that time Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, falling into the tide on Brighton beach were published across eight columns of a front page, and are often reprinted as a hideous example of staged photo hubris. His 2016’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, took the title from an irritated John Major striking him with a folded briefing paper.

Career Highlights

He became the a major newspaper’s most youthful 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 eventually resigned over what he considered editing of his most powerful images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was assembled to launch a new newspaper. He was instrumental in shaping the style of editorial photography that the paper became known for, helping set new standards 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 collapse of communism.

He operated independently after being let go in 1999, and significant projects after that included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which led to an exhibition launched in London – where he gave a personal tour to Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Background and Beginnings

Harris was born in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician 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 estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended a local secondary modern school, learning practical skills in woodwork and metal crafting, 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 Legacy

Other photographers, often scooped by him, remembered his work as remarkable. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the initial stages, called him “a superb and brave photographer”, an inspiration to a generation of young 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 initially encountered as a three-year-old in primary 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 revisiting significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a few weeks before his demise, was to donate his extensive collection of 55 years’ work to a permanent home. Among his favourite archive images he reflected on a very young Harris consuming generous servings 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, each union concluded with divorce.

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