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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 UK photojournalists of his era.

An International Career

He journeyed across the globe as a freelance or a staffer for major British titles, documenting such events as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, battlefields in the Balkan region and across Africa, the aftermath of the Falklands war and four US presidential campaigns. Additionally, he produced poetic landscapes of the countryside around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he took more than two million photographs, averaging 100 a day, but he made that count some years back. He kept sharing archive and new images each day on social media until a short time before his death, and had been arranging to give a talk on his career and experiences.

Memorable Assignments

Tales from a rollercoaster career featured an expenses-shredding 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 treated with ice that had been employed to cool the body.

His 1983’s images of the then Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, toppling into the tide on Brighton beach were carried across multiple columns of a leading page, and are regularly reproduced as a striking example of staged photo hubris. His 2016 memoir, ... And Then the Prime Minister Hit Me, was named after an irritated John Major striking him with a rolled-up briefing paper.

Career Milestones

He was appointed as 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 eventually resigned over what he saw as censorship of his strongest images of famine in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was assembled to create a new newspaper. He was instrumental in shaping the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping set new standards for press images and newspaper design, in striking images covering front and back pages. Among many awards, he was named the industry-recognised 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 major projects after that included a year spent capturing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the war memorial organisation, which led to an exhibition launched in London – where he gave a private viewing to the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh – and a emotional book, Remembered.

Early Life and Start

Harris was born in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later assisted him build a darkroom in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family relocated farther east – and to a better area – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian went to a local secondary modern school, learning useful skills in woodwork and metal crafting, before leaving at 16.

At a central London agency, he rose rapidly from messenger boy to photographer, and launched his professional career at eastern London local papers before moving on to national publications.

Peers and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often scooped by him, recalled his work as astonishing. Nick Turpin, 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”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had first met as a toddler in infant school, and they became inseparable partners through his remaining years. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they went on a driving tour in Europe, posting sunny images of good meals and good wine, and revisiting important sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, finished a few weeks 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 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 wed twice, each union ended in divorce.

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