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The photographer Brian Harris, who has died aged 73 of cancer, ended his schooling at 16 to become a messenger boy, and went on to become one of the most respected UK documentary photographers of his era.

A Global Professional Journey

He journeyed the world as a independent or a staffer for Fleet Street publications, documenting such events as the collapse of the Berlin Wall, drought and hunger in Ethiopia and Sudan, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, war zones in the Balkans and throughout Africa, the consequences of the Falklands conflict and several US presidential campaigns. He also created lyrical scenic views of the rural areas around his home county of Essex home.

According to his estimates he shot more than two million photographs, taking an average of 100 a day, but he made that count several years ago. He continued posting archive and new images each day on online platforms until a short time before his passing, and had been planning to give a talk on his career and experiences.

Memorable Assignments

Tales from a turbulent career included an expenses-shredding premium flight in 1991 to attend the funeral in India of the slain politician Rajiv Gandhi, where he fainted from sunstroke 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, falling into the tide 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’s 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 was appointed as 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 reporting of the end of the civil war in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He eventually resigned over what he saw as editing of his most powerful images of starvation in Africa.

In 1986 Harris was made head photographer as the team was put together to launch a new newspaper. He was instrumental in shaping the style of journalistic photography that the paper became known for, helping raise the bar for press images 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 collapse of communism.

He worked as a freelance after being made redundant in 1999, and major projects thereafter included a year spent photographing cemeteries across the world in 2006 for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which led to 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 born in east London, to Dorothy and Leonard Harris, an technician who later helped his son construct a photo lab in the garage. In the mid 1950s, the family moved eastwards – and up in the world – to the Rise Park estate in Romford, Essex. Brian attended a local secondary modern school, learning useful skills in woodwork and metal crafting, before departing at 16.

At a central London photo agency, he rose rapidly from delivery boy to photographer, and launched his working life at east London local papers before moving on to national publications.

Peers and Impact

Other photographers, often scooped by him, remembered his work as astonishing. A colleague, who collaborated with him in the early days, called him “a great and brave photographer”, an influence to a cohort of young colleagues. Tim Dawson, a union representative, said he “reimagined the possibilities of news photography during newspapers’ last golden age”.

Private World

In 2001 Harris reconnected through a website with Nikki, 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, posting bright images of fine dining and good wine, and returning to significant sites including Dresden and Ypres.

His final project, completed a few weeks before his demise, was to transfer his vast archive of five decades of work to a permanent home. Among his preferred historical photos he reflected on a youthful Harris drinking 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 married twice, both marriages concluded with divorce.

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