Ian Berry was born in Lancashire, England, in 1934 and made his reputation in South Africa, where he worked for the Daily Mail and later for Drum magazine. He was the only photographer to document the massacre at Sharpeville in 1960, and his photographs were used in the trial to prove the victims’ innocence.

Henri Cartier-Bresson invited Berry to join Magnum Photos in 1962, when he was based in Paris, and he became a full member of the agency five years later. In 1964, he moved to London to become the first contract photographer for The Observer Magazine. While there, he completed a project in the Whitechapel area, with the first grant for a photographer from the Arts Council, photographing the changing community and his country of origin with fresh eyes after many years abroad. This work in 1978 became the book titled The English. Since then, assignments have taken him around the world. He was the first photographer to get into Prague on the day the Russians invaded Czechoslovakia, and he covered the Troubles in Ireland, famine in Ethiopia, as well as conflicts in Israel, Vietnam, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. His major body of work produced in South Africa is represented in two of his books —Black and Whites: L’Afrique du Sud (1988) with a with a foreword by the then French president François Mitterrand, and Living Apart (1996) with a foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Editorial assignments included work for National Geographic, Fortune, Stern, Geo, Esquire, Paris-Match, and Life. Berry also reported on the political and social transformations in China and the former USSR. Along with two books for the Spanish fishing industry, he completed one on child slavery in Ghana, and more commercial books including Women in Wine, The Sporting Horse, and Famous Piazzas.

I only spoke with Ian once, in 2017, as part of my research for our film on the life of Bill Jay. He was polite and erudite as you would expect, and in the conversation he reflected on his time in London in the 1960s and early 1970s, including his friendships with fellow photographers David Hurn, Phillip Jones Griffiths, Bryn Campbell and Josef Koudelka. The audio of that conversation is not great, but I include it here for anyone who never met Ian, who would like to put a voice to his pictures and some background to his influences. www.ianberrymagnum.com

© Grant Scott 2026

Image: The English, Back to Back Houses in Ashington, Northumberland. Ian Berry