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

A Global Career

He journeyed across the globe as a independent or a staffer for Fleet Street publications, documenting 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 throughout Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands conflict and several US presidential campaigns. He also created poetic landscapes of the countryside around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he took over 2m photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He continued posting historical and new images each day on online platforms up to a short time before his death, and had been planning to deliver a lecture on his life and work.

Memorable Projects

Stories from a turbulent career included an costly business class flight in 1991 to attend the funeral in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed from sunstroke and pneumonia and was cooled down with ice that had been employed to cool the body.

His 1983 images of the then Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, toppling into the sea on Brighton beach were published 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 irritated John Major striking him with a folded briefing paper.

Professional Milestones

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 nearly a decade, including coverage of the end of the civil war 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 put together to launch a major newspaper. He played a key role in forming the style of editorial photography that the paper became known for, helping raise the bar for news photography and newspaper design, in striking images filling multiple pages. Among numerous awards, he was honoured as the What the Papers Say photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe recording the collapse of communism.

He operated independently after being made redundant in 1999, and significant projects after that included a year spent photographing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which led to 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.

Background and Beginnings

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 relocated farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to a local secondary modern school, acquiring practical skills in woodwork and metal crafting, before leaving at 16.

At a Fleet Street photo agency, he quickly advanced from delivery boy to photographer, and began his professional career at eastern London local papers before moving on to major publications.

Colleagues and Impact

Fellow photographers, often outpaced by him, recalled his work as remarkable. A colleague, who worked with him in the initial stages, described him as “a superb and brave photographer”, an inspiration to a generation of junior colleagues. Tim Dawson, a union representative, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Personal Life

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had first met as a toddler in infant school, and they became close companions through his remaining years. After learning of his illness, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, sharing bright images of fine dining and good wine, and revisiting significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, finished a short time before his demise, was to donate his extensive collection of 55 years’ work to a long-term repository. Among his favourite historical photos he commented on a very young Harris consuming large glasses of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a blessed life I’ve had – no regrets and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was married twice, each union ended in divorce.

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