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The photographer Brian Harris, who has died aged 73 from cancer, left school at 16 to become a messenger boy, and eventually became one of the most respected UK photojournalists of his generation.

A Global Career

He journeyed the world as a independent or a employee for Fleet Street publications, documenting major happenings including the fall of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkan region and across Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands war and several US election campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic scenic views of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he took over 2m images, averaging 100 a day, but he stated that figure several years ago. He kept sharing historical and new images daily on online platforms until a short time before his death, and had been planning to deliver a lecture on his life and work.

Notable Projects

Tales from a rollercoaster career included an expenses-shredding premium flight in 1991 to attend the funeral in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he collapsed from heatstroke and pneumonia and was treated 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, toppling into the sea 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, took the title from an exasperated John Major striking him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Professional Milestones

He was appointed as the a major newspaper’s most youthful 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 civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he considered censorship of his strongest images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was assembled to create a new newspaper. He played a key role in forming the style of journalistic photography that the paper was famous for, helping raise the bar for press images and newspaper design, in striking images filling front and back pages. Among numerous awards, he was named the What the Papers Say photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe documenting the collapse of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being let go in 1999, and significant projects thereafter included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which resulted in an display 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 born in eastern London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an electrician who later helped his son build 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 attended Chase Cross secondary modern school, learning practical skills in woodwork and metalwork, before departing at 16.

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

Peers and Impact

Fellow photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as remarkable. A colleague, who collaborated with him in the early days, called him “a great and fearless photographer”, an influence to a generation of junior colleagues. Another associate, a freelance organiser, said he “transformed the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had initially encountered as a three-year-old in primary school, and they became close companions through his final decades. After learning of his illness, they embarked on a driving tour in Europe, sharing bright images of fine dining and quality drinks, and returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a short time before his death, was to donate his vast archive of five decades of work to a permanent home. Among his favourite historical photos he commented on a very young Harris drinking large glasses of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a fortunate life I’ve had – no regrets and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was wed twice, each union concluded with divorce.

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