The photojournalist B. Harris, who passed away at the age of 73 from cancer, left school at 16 to become a messenger boy, and went on to become one of the most respected UK documentary photographers of his era.
An International Professional Journey
He journeyed the world as a independent or a staffer for Fleet Street publications, documenting 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 Balkan region and across Africa, the consequences of the Falklands war and several US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced lyrical scenic views of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.
By his own calculation he took over 2m images, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He kept sharing archive and recent images each day on social media up to a short time before his passing, and had been arranging to deliver a lecture on his life and work.Notable Projects
Stories from a turbulent career included an costly premium flight in 1991 to reach the burial in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from sunstroke and pneumonia and was treated with ice that had been used to preserve the body.
His 1983’s images of the at that time 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 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 rolled-up briefing paper.
Professional Highlights
He became the a major newspaper’s youngest ever staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and was based around the world for nearly a decade, including coverage of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he saw as censorship of his most powerful images of starvation in Africa.
In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was assembled to launch a new newspaper. He played a key role in shaping the style of editorial photography that the paper became known for, helping raise the bar for press images and broadsheet design, in dramatic images covering front and back pages. Among many 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 capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, which resulted in 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.
Background and Beginnings
Harris was born in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician 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 estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to Chase Cross secondary modern school, acquiring practical skills in woodwork and metalwork, before leaving at 16.
At a central London 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 scooped by him, remembered his work as astonishing. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the early days, called him “a great and fearless photographer”, an inspiration to a cohort of junior colleagues. Tim Dawson, a freelance organiser, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.
Private World
In 2001 Harris made contact through a online service with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had first met as a toddler 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, sharing sunny images of good meals and good wine, and returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.
His last task, finished a few weeks before his demise, was to donate his extensive collection of 55 years’ work to a permanent home. Among his preferred archive images he commented on a youthful 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 married twice, both marriages ended in divorce.
He is survived by Nikki, his son Jacob, from his later union, Nikki’s daughter, Holly, and by his sister, Jan.
