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The photographer Brian Harris, who has died aged 73 from cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to become a messenger boy, and went on to become among the most esteemed British photojournalists of his era.

A Global Professional Journey

He journeyed the world as a freelance or a employee for major British publications, covering major happenings including the fall 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 consequences of the Falklands conflict and four US election campaigns. Additionally, he produced lyrical landscapes of the countryside around his home county of Essex home.

By his own calculation he took over 2m images, taking an average of 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He kept sharing historical and new images daily on social media up to a short time before his passing, and had been arranging to deliver a lecture on his career and experiences.

Memorable Projects

Stories from a rollercoaster career featured an expenses-shredding business class flight in 1991 to attend the burial 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’s images of the at that time Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, falling into the sea on Brighton beach were published across multiple columns of a front page, and are often reprinted as a hideous example of photo-opportunity hubris. His 2016’s memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, took the title from an exasperated John Major striking him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Professional Highlights

He became the a major newspaper’s most youthful staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and worked around the world for almost ten years, including reporting 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 assembled to launch a new newspaper. He played a key role in forming the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping raise the bar for press images and newspaper design, in dramatic images filling front and back pages. Among numerous awards, he was honoured as the What the Papers Say photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in the former Eastern Bloc documenting the fall of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being made redundant in 1999, and significant projects thereafter included a year spent photographing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, which resulted in an exhibition launched in London – where he gave a personal tour to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a emotional book, Remembered.

Early Life and Start

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 mid 1950s, the family moved farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park housing estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended 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 messenger boy to photographer, and began his professional career at eastern London local papers before moving on to major publications.

Peers and Legacy

Other 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 fearless photographer”, an inspiration to a cohort of junior colleagues. Tim Dawson, a freelance organiser, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris made contact 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 road trip in Europe, posting bright images of fine dining and quality drinks, and revisiting important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a few weeks before his demise, was to transfer his vast archive of 55 years’ work to a permanent home. Among his preferred historical photos 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 remorse and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was married twice, both marriages ended in divorce.

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