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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 among the most esteemed British documentary photographers of his generation.

An International Professional Journey

He travelled the world as a independent or a employee for Fleet Street titles, 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 throughout Africa, the consequences of the Falklands war and several US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced lyrical landscapes of the rural areas around his Essex home.

According to his estimates he took more than two million images, averaging 100 a day, but he stated that figure several years ago. He continued posting historical and new images each day on social media up to a short time before his death, and had been arranging to give a talk on his life and work.

Memorable Projects

Tales from a rollercoaster career featured an costly business class flight in 1991 to reach the burial in India of the slain politician 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 at that time Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, falling into the tide on Brighton beach were carried across eight 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, was named after an exasperated John Major hitting him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Professional Milestones

He was appointed as the Times’ most youthful staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and was based around the world for nearly a decade, including reporting of the end of the internal conflict in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he saw as censorship of his strongest images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was assembled to create a major newspaper. He was instrumental in shaping the style of editorial photography that the paper was famous for, helping set new standards for press images and broadsheet design, in dramatic images covering multiple pages. Among many awards, he was honoured as the industry-recognised photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc documenting the fall of communism.

He operated independently after being made redundant in 1999, and major projects thereafter included a year spent photographing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which led to an exhibition launched in London – where he gave a private viewing to Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.

Early Life and Beginnings

Harris was born in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later helped his son construct a photo lab in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family moved eastwards – and to a better area – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended a local secondary modern school, learning practical skills in woodwork and metal crafting, before departing at 16.

At a central London agency, he rose rapidly from messenger boy to photographer, and began his working life at eastern London local papers before moving on to national publications.

Colleagues and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often outpaced by him, recalled his work as astonishing. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the early days, described him as “a superb and brave photographer”, an influence to a generation of young colleagues. Another associate, 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, whom he had initially encountered as a toddler in infant school, and they became close companions through his final decades. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they went 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 death, was to donate his extensive collection of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his preferred historical photos he commented on a youthful Harris drinking large glasses of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a fortunate life I’ve had – no remorse and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was married twice, both marriages concluded with divorce.

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