During the 1950s and 60s the photographer Terry Fincher, who has died aged 77 of a liver tumour, covered every major war and trouble spot around the world. He did five tours of Vietnam and his pictures regularly fetured in the Daily Express, in the era of its greatness. He was British press photographer of the year for 1957, 1959, 1964, and 1967, and runner-up in 1968, creating an unequalled record.
His coverage of royalty, political stories and show business stars made him the finest Fleet Street photographer I ever encountered. His ruthless competitiveness, quick thinking and foresight kept him ahead. He covered wars in a different way from his contemporaries, Don McCullin, of the Sunday Times, or the late Larry Burrows, of Life magazine. Terry was working for a daily paper, and thus to tighter deadlines, so he had to tell the story in one or two pictures.
I sat happily for hours listening to Terry talk about Vietnam. It was the story of a press photographer at war. In April 1968, he shared nights and days in a trench with Burrows on Hill Timothy, held by the US army. After a night when several soldiers were killed by incoming artillery fire from the nearby Hill Tom, the two photographers decided to dig a trench near the command bunker. Another uncomfortable night ensued as they realised, amid the shelling and rain, that the trench was too short, narrow and shallow.
When they awoke, there were dead bodies all around, waiting to be lifted out for burial. Terry wanted to be at home with his family, and deliberated, as the helicopters came in, whether it was time to get out, but he did not move. That day he and Burrows dug the trench deeper, longer and wider, put up shelves for their cameras, pulled ground sheets across the trench to keep out the rain and put up a sign - Hotel Timothy Press Centre.
In the evening an army padre joined them. They talked about how they did not leave an assignment until it was finished. "You don't take the easy way out," said Terry. Larry agreed that this was so. They understood the code. That night the shelling was heavier and the night darker. In the morning Terry asked his comrade what they should do that day. Burrows looked up at the dark sky. "Exposure one second at f2.8," he said.
Terry Fincher was born in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, and raised in Putney, south-west London. Len, his father, was a caretaker at Putney library and his mother Ruth was a nurse. He was educated at Clark's college, Putney, which he left in in 1945 to become an electrician's mate in a clothing company near St Paul's Cathedral.
At lunchtimes he would wander down Ludgate Hill and stare at the national newspaper offices then clustered along Fleet Street. One day he saw a photographer carrying a large plate camera with flashlight attached, and off to an assignment. He told his mother about his aspirations, got an interview at the Keystone Press Agency - and was hired as a messenger boy. He recalled running miles every day in all weathers delivering photographs to newspaper offices. He had one pair of shoes and kept out the wet by stuffing cardboard in the soles. "Nothing," he said, "could dampen my enthusiasm for Fleet Street."
As a reward his mother bought Terry an old folding camera for 18s 6d (92p). One day in 1947, travelling to work, he spotted a policeman holding up the traffic, and shepherding a swan across Putney Bridge. He leapt off the No 14 bus, photographed the scene, and developed the plate at work. The picture was published in all three London evening papers - the Star, the Evening News and the Evening Standard.
During the late 1940s and early 50s Terry mixed with the Elephant Boys, a gang for whom weekends were for dancing and punch-ups around the Elephant and Castle district in south London. The battlegrounds were the dance halls and the fights were with north of the river gangs. Through those relationships, Terry became friends with some of the boys who later became the great train robbers.
Before long Terry was a photographer with the Keystone agency. The turning point in his career came in October 1956, when he was accredited to British forces as a photographer covering the Suez invasion, the first of his many wars. The following year he joined the Daily Herald and won his first award as press photographer of the year. In 1961 he joined the Daily Express and was given his own page, the Fincher File. It showcased photography from around the world, and his assignments that regularly scooped Fleet Street.
When I joined Keystone in 1967 as a junior photographer, Midge Aylward told me that "If Fincher's on the job, stick to him like shite and you won't miss anything." The first time I tried to act on this advice, Fincher, a man 20 years my senior, completely lost me. After the job was done, he asked me what I was up to, following him around so closely. I confessed my sins over a cup of tea and we became good friends.
After Terry left the Express, he freelanced for three months on the Sun. Then, in 1970, with his wife June and their daughters, he set up the Photographers International agency. It was based in the former railway station at Chilworth, Surrey, and supplied Fleet Street with news and features with high-quality material from worldwide assignments. Later, they specialised in the royal family, in particular Princess Diana, with whom both Terry and his daughter Jayne built up close personal relationships. Earlier this year, a retrospective exhibition of his work was held at the Getty Images gallery in London.
Terry became weak and forgetful in his last year, but he still never left home without a digital camera, with which he produced beautiful landscapes pictures. Last month, June predeceased him. He is survived by his daughters, Jayne, Sally and Lucy.
• Terence Edgar 'Terry' Fincher, photographer, born July 8 1931; died October 6 2008
