My friend Brian Harris is every writing journalist’s idea of a photographer: modest, equable, sober. There is a story about him and Charlie Wilson, when Wilson was editor of the Times, in which one of them concluded a spirited artistic discussion by picking the other up and hanging him on a coathook in the gents lavatory at Printing House Square. They are both short men and I can’t remember who is supposed to have hoiked up whom. But there is no one with whom I would rather work, because he is enormously intelligent about stories, and he is, of course, a wonderful photographer. Nowadays he makes his living doing advertising and commercial work. We met, almost by chance, in the Fulminating Fascist the other day. I had been out for a walk, trying to photograph clouds with a polarising filter. He said that he now has about £5000’s worth of gear unused at home. It’s all digital, and he has gone back to using his Leicas for everything but “Happy snaps” and the occasional newspaper story he still does. But he was amused by my little Canon Powershot, and in the 30 metres between the pub and the market square, he spotted the bell tower on the town library and grabbed a picture.
Some of his astonishing black and white prints are still sold through the Independent’s web site. But he’s almost invisible to Google. Of course he should build himself a beautiful web site. But he hasn’t got the skills to do it, and it’s not obvious that it would pay him to hire the kind of designer he deserves.