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The photographer Brian Harris, who has died aged 73 from cancer, left school at 16 to work as a courier, and eventually became one of the most respected British photojournalists of his generation.

A Global Professional Journey

He journeyed across the globe as a freelance or a staffer for Fleet Street publications, covering such events as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, famine in Ethiopia and Sudan, the conflict in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkan region and throughout Africa, the consequences of the Falklands war and several US presidential campaigns. He also created poetic scenic views of the countryside around his home county of Essex home.

By his own calculation he took more than 2m images, taking an average of 100 a day, but he stated that figure several years ago. He continued posting historical and new images daily on social media until a short time before his passing, and had been planning to deliver a lecture on his career and experiences.

Memorable Projects

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 collapsed from sunstroke and pneumonia and was treated with ice that had been employed to cool the body.

His 1983 images of the then Labour party leader Neil Kinnock with his wife, Glenys, toppling into the tide 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 striking him with a folded briefing paper.

Career Milestones

He became the Times’ 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 coverage of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He later stepped down over what he considered editing of his most powerful images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris became chief photographer as the team was put together to create a major newspaper. He was instrumental in forming the style of journalistic photography that the paper was famous for, helping set new standards for news photography and newspaper design, in dramatic images filling 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 documenting the fall of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being let go in 1999, and major projects thereafter included a year spent photographing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, 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.

Early Life and Beginnings

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 relocated eastwards – and to a better area – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended Chase Cross secondary modern school, learning practical skills in carpentry and metal crafting, before leaving at 16.

At a Fleet Street agency, he rose rapidly from messenger boy to photographer, and began his working life at eastern London local papers before moving on to national publications.

Peers and Legacy

Fellow photographers, often scooped by him, remembered his work as astonishing. A colleague, who worked with him in the early days, called him “a great and brave photographer”, an inspiration to a generation of young 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 online service with Nikki Bertroya, whom he had first met as a three-year-old in primary school, and they became close companions through his remaining years. After receiving his terminal diagnosis, they embarked on a road trip in Europe, sharing sunny images of fine dining and good wine, and returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His last task, completed a short time before his demise, was to transfer his extensive collection of 55 years’ work to a permanent home. Among his preferred archive images he reflected on a youthful Harris consuming large glasses of wine with the actor Helen Mirren: “What a blessed life I’ve had – no remorse and no ‘Must Do’s’”.

He was wed twice, both marriages concluded with divorce.

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