Brian Harris Life Story: A Life Behind the Camera

The photographer Brian Harris, who passed away at the age of 73 of cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to become a messenger boy, and eventually became among the most esteemed British documentary photographers of his era.

A Global Career

He travelled the world as a independent or a employee for major British publications, covering major happenings including the collapse of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkans and across Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands war and four US election campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic scenic views of the countryside around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he took more than 2m images, averaging 100 a day, but he stated that figure several years ago. He kept sharing archive and new images each day on online platforms 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 rollercoaster career featured an costly business class flight in 1991 to reach the burial in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed from heatstroke and pneumonia and was treated 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, toppling into the tide on Brighton beach were carried across eight columns of a front page, and are regularly reproduced as a striking example of photo-opportunity hubris. His 2016’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, was named after an exasperated John Major hitting him with a folded briefing paper.

Career Highlights

He became the a major newspaper’s youngest ever 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 saw as editing of his most powerful images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was assembled to create a new newspaper. He played a key role in shaping the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping raise the bar for news photography and newspaper design, in dramatic images covering multiple pages. Among numerous awards, he was honoured as the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc recording the fall 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 war memorial organisation, which led to an display launched in London – where he gave a personal tour to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Background and Start

Harris was born in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later assisted him construct a photo lab in the garage. In the 1950s, the family relocated farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to a local secondary modern school, acquiring practical skills in woodwork and metalwork, before leaving at 16.

At a central London photo agency, he rose rapidly from delivery boy to photographer, and launched his professional career at eastern London local papers before progressing to national 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, called him “a superb and fearless photographer”, an inspiration to a generation of young colleagues. Another associate, a union representative, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris made contact through a online service with Nikki, whom he had initially encountered as a toddler in primary school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, sharing sunny images of fine dining and good wine, and revisiting significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, finished a few weeks before his demise, was to transfer his extensive collection of five decades of work to a long-term repository. Among his preferred historical photos he reflected on a very young Harris consuming generous servings of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a fortunate life I’ve had – no remorse and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was wed twice, both marriages ended in divorce.

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