The Prince and Princess of Wales have long eschewed the services of professional photographers when it comes to the intimate and informal family portraits they like to release through social and mainstream media.
With Kate a keen amateur photographer, the couple’s Christmas cards and the birthdays of their three children are often marked by photographs taken by her. It is a break with tradition stemming from when the princess’s father, Mike Middleton, took the first official photograph of a newborn Prince George.
Aides would argue these delightful family snaps offer an informality that a professional would find difficult to replicate.
Another undoubted bonus of taking it in-house is that the couple get complete control over the images and copyright, bypassing mainstream media for these personal moments.
Clearly, however, no matter how talented an amateur, there is the risk of falling short of the highest professional standards – especially those required by news media.
For this to have happened when the photograph in question was meant to convey such an important message is a huge embarrassment for Kensington Palace.
It will have caused no little dismay at Buckingham Palace, too, with the “manipulation” debacle overshadowing the Commonwealth Day service, one of the most important events in the royal diary, and threatening to drown out the king’s Commonwealth Day message.
The photograph, on this occasion taken by Prince William, shows his wife smiling and surrounded by their three children, and was the first official picture of Kate since she was admitted to hospital for planned abdominal surgery almost two months ago.
As such, it was intended to offer reassurance and dispel wild speculation on the internet over her health and the condition that necessitated surgery.
Conspiracy theorists generally need very little to fuel their feeding frenzy. Clumsy pixel manipulation was manna.
Social media was immediately flooded with comments about the unnatural shape of Princess Charlotte’s cardigan sleeve. Others pointed to Prince Louis’ fingers, which appeared awkwardly positioned. Some noted that the tree leaves in the background looked too green for a photograph said to have been taken at Windsor last week. There was speculation over why Kate was not wearing her wedding rings. In all, the photograph prompted more questions than it answered.
Experienced picture editors at the international agencies Getty, Reuters, Associated Press, EPA and AFP, to whom the photograph was released through the Kensington Palace communications teams, took the rare – if not unprecedented – step of issuing “kill notices” and withdrawing the photograph from their wire services.
Though the picture was believed genuine, they cited possible digital manipulation of the image around Charlotte’s sleeve. With no immediate comment or clarification forthcoming from Kensington Palace, they pulled the image. The UK-based PA later followed suit after seeking and failing to get “urgent clarification” from the palace.
At a time when almost every smartphone has sophisticated picture editing facilities, by which objects can be erased, inserted and moved around, news media organisations have exceptionally tight protocols to guard against manipulation. Such protocols are vital in maintaining trust.
And trust is what was at stake here for the royal couple. The late Queen Elizabeth II used to say she had to be “seen to be believed”. Now the public, and media, were questioning whether they could believe what they were seeing.
The princess held her hands up as the clamour refused to die down, with the story having made headlines in the international media as well as in the UK.
In a post on X, she wrote: “Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing. I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused. I hope everyone celebrating had a very happy Mother’s Day. C”
A Kensington Palace source sought to dampen down the row by stressing the princess had made only “minor adjustments”.
Mark Borkowski, a public relations and crisis consultant, described it as a “massive own goal”. Of Kate’s statement, he said: “It’s plausible she’s at home playing with the computer and using an AI tool, but if they’re really going to regain any sort of trust they should release the unedited photo. It can’t be that bad if they just made a few tweaks.
“I find they have risen to the challenge, provided the statement as an explanation – the question is, with all the conspiracy theories running around, whether people believe it, and I’m not sure that they will.”
Kensington Palace said it would not be issuing the unedited photograph. The couple will be hoping Kate’s statement is enough, and will want to move quickly on.
But there will be dismay, and great frustration, that what was meant to be a feelgood message after the darker days of ill health has so spectacularly misfired.
