Harry Goodman was born in Brooklyn, New York on June 22, 1912. He attended Alexander Hamilton High School, followed by two years at New York University. At the age of 15, he had his first newspaper job as a reporter for the Brooklyn Citizen. When he was 16, he became a photographer for the Metro News Service in New York. In 1932, Goodman moved to Philadelphia and worked for a weekly pictorial magazine. After the magazine closed in 1933, he relocated to Washington, D.C. and took a job with the Harris and Ewing News Service. The following year, he became an Assistant Manager at the Washington Star, and in 1965, he was promoted to Manager of the Photographic Advertising Department. As a member of the White House Photographers Association, Goodman was present for many official visits from heads-of-state and inauguration ceremonies. In 1977, he retired from the Star, but continued working as a freelance photographer. He also worked for the Keystone News Service, retiring a second time in the mid-1980s.

Goodman married his wife, Sara, on March 5, 1934 and they had two sons, Fred and Jeff. He was a founder and choir director of the old Beth Israel Congregation and a member of the Amity Club B’nai Israel Synagogue and Samuel Gombers-Benjamin Franklin Masonic Lodge. Additionally, Goodman taught photography at Southeastern University. He suffered a heart attack, which he survived, in the White House pressroom in 1979. Goodman died of pneumonia at Sibley Memorial Hospital on July 28, 1992.