Brian Harris Obituary: An Existence Through the Camera
The photographer Brian Harris, who has died aged 73 of cancer, left school at 16 to become a messenger boy, and eventually became among the most esteemed British documentary photographers of his generation.
A Global Career
He journeyed across the globe as a freelance or a staffer for major British titles, documenting major happenings including the fall of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkan region and across Africa, the consequences of the Falklands war and four US presidential campaigns. He also created lyrical scenic views of the countryside around his home county of Essex home.
According to his estimates he shot over two million photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He continued posting archive and new images daily on online platforms until a short time before his death, and had been planning to give a talk on his career and experiences.Notable Assignments
Tales from a rollercoaster career featured an costly premium flight in 1991 to reach the funeral in India of the assassinated leader Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from heatstroke and pneumonia and was cooled down with ice that had been employed to cool the body.
His 1983 images of the at that time Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, toppling into the sea on Brighton beach were published across multiple 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 folded briefing paper.
Professional Milestones
He became the a major newspaper’s youngest ever staff photographer when he started there in 1976, at the age of 26, and worked around the world for nearly a decade, including reporting 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 became chief photographer as the team was assembled to launch a major newspaper. He was instrumental in shaping the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping raise the bar for news photography and newspaper design, in striking images covering multiple pages. Among numerous awards, he was named the What the Papers Say photographer of the year in 1990 for his work in eastern Europe recording the fall of communism.
He worked as a freelance after being made redundant in 1999, and major projects after that 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 private viewing to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a moving book, Remembered.
Early Life and Beginnings
Harris was raised in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later helped his son construct a darkroom in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family moved farther east – and up in the world – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to a local secondary modern school, acquiring useful skills in carpentry and metal crafting, before departing at 16.
At a central London agency, he quickly advanced from delivery boy to photographer, and launched his professional career at east London local papers before progressing to national publications.
Peers and Impact
Fellow photographers, often scooped by him, remembered his work as remarkable. Nick Turpin, who collaborated with him in the initial stages, called him “a great and fearless photographer”, an influence to a cohort of young colleagues. Another associate, a freelance organiser, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ peak era”.
Personal Life
In 2001 Harris reconnected through a online service with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had first met as a three-year-old 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 returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.
His last task, finished a short time before his demise, was to transfer his vast archive of five decades of work to a long-term repository. Among his preferred historical photos he commented on a very young Harris drinking 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 wed 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.
