Photographing Royalty
How did I get to photograph Princess Ann? Well, the father of the bride from the first wedding we ever shot (who, incidentally, found us from the back of a postcard from one of our 1st ever jobs), called me to ask me something.
As we had been so professional and courteous at his daughters wedding (image scanned from original print as no digital then)…
…he thought of us when a certain job came up. Princess Ann would be visiting the Old People’s care home where he was an administrator, and would I like to be the official photographer?
Needless to say I jumped at the chance!
I was still fairly young and pretty nervous about the whole thing, it was certainly a first for me. Maybe it was because she sensed this and being the professional woman that she is, she put me at my ease.
She was very polite, asking me where I would like her to stand or sit, as we visited various residents of the home. The 45-50 minutes that it took were just a blur and before I knew it, we were watching her flame red helicopter leaving the playing field of the local school!
The point of this page is to re-iterate passion. From a simple postcard in a small village came our first wedding. From that wedding came a handful of weddings. Then from that first wedding came the opportunity to exclusively photograph royalty!
We were passionate about photographing beautiful villages and felt the same at the very first wedding. If this passion comes across to your clients, the photographs that you take almost become secondary. Your attitude gets you noticed especially at weddings.
Since then and back in 2010, I was fortunate enough to photograph Princess Anne’s brother HRH Prince Andrew when he visited a local engineering firm in Weymouth, Dorset.
I got the job through a recent contact I made who’s usual photographer was going to be away during the visit. Again, I jumped at the chance to enhance my “Royal” portfolio further.
I treated the shoot as I would a wedding by doing a full reccie visit prior to the shoot and checked the lighting at all of the points where I would be photographing the Duke.
The best advice I can give is to be professional at all times and network with people whenever and wherever you can. “Be” a professional photographer at all times and if you can, carry a portfolio of your work with you always by using an iPod, iPad or similar.
Now I have photographed Princess Ann and Prince Andrew, I am waiting to see who is next. I did manage to snap the Queen as she drove past me in Weymouth in 2009 but am still waiting for that Royal wedding commission.
