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- By Sean Coughlan
- royal correspondent
Image source, Prince of Wales
The Mother’s Day photo sparked controversy over image manipulation and was later blocked by photography agencies.
If you cover real stories, you’ll be familiar with a very common conversation. People will say they have no interest in what is said about the royals, and then they will talk for years, in excessive detail, about what they think about the latest royal news frenzy.
And then they will say, again, that no one is really interested, or that the royals should be left alone; and then talk about all the wild claims they’ve seen on social media and the detailed articles they’ve read about them.
In the middle of that maelstrom is the Princess of Wales and her “small adjustments” to a family photograph.
What was supposed to be a cozy Mother’s Day photo ended up being blocked by aggressive “death notices” from photo agencies.
Without a doubt, it gets people talking. Who knew that everyone at X, formerly Twitter, was an expert in digital imaging technology? Was it photoshopped? Was it a combination of several images? Does it matter anyway?
The scale of online traffic suggests that it does matter to many people. For a photograph that has been “killed”, it means having an extraordinary afterlife. By now it must be one of the most famous images on the planet.
Aside from the extraordinary interest in royalty, the story is immensely relatable on a more personal level. People may have modified their own family photographs using digital tools. They might think it’s fair to want the best image.
But with royalty, there is the additional issue of public trust.
People also want to know why it was Catherine who took all the blame.
There are editorials – including the one on the Sun’s Tuesday front page – that say the story has gone quite far, but there are other views, including those of former Sun editor David Yelland, that talk about how much more serious this is. could still come back.
“I don’t want to say this, but I’ll do it anyway… I think Kate is one step away from having a really big reputation problem here; like, if the original photo looks nothing like the photo we saw.” Mr Yelland told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
The big risk, says the tabloid’s former editor, is that the original image is leaked and reveals much more than a simple cosmetic touch-up.
“It would take him a long time to get over that,” Yelland said.
Kensington Palace’s position remains that they will not publish the original photo, nor are there any further details of what the “experiment” in photo editing may have altered.
It follows a very familiar palace media approach to big stories: publish a limited amount of information, usually with some ambiguity, and then say, more or less, nothing more.
It was the approach also used to announce the King’s cancer diagnosis and the Princess of Wales’s surgery.
And it might be in step with public opinion, as a YouGov poll on Monday showed 49% agree the right amount of information has been revealed, compared to 20% who think it should have been shared. more, while others are not sure.
The Princess of Wales last attended a public event on Christmas Day
In the wake of the Mother’s Day photo row, there was a brief acknowledgment on social media that Catherine had edited the image and an apology for the confusion. Nothing else.
The media storm has been such that it has almost gone unnoticed how unusual it was for a member of royalty to ask for forgiveness. That was a big step. He also seemed to put all the blame on Catherine.
The background to this spontaneous-looking and carefully planned family photo was Catherine’s long absence from public events while she recovers from unspecified abdominal surgery.
This was to be the first authorized image of the princess: a family intervention, sweeping away the paparazzi images that had begun to appear.
Those paparazzi photographs were not used in the UK press, but were widely published in the United States and on social media.
That means that in the US people will look at those unconfirmed paparazzi photos and compare them to this latest officially released photo.
From the palace’s perspective, it doesn’t help that we are in a climate of suspicion about what we are shown. It is a very 2024 story. The world of misinformation is flooded with falsehoods and doubts. It is not a territory that royalty wants to join.
It is also a big misunderstanding to think that the Prince and Princess of Wales are not in touch with these types of conversations or with modern media. They are members of ancient royalty.
They are surrounded by smart and active advisors. It’s a public relations operation known for its cleverness, not its mistakes.
This way they will find a way to get out of the corner they have gotten themselves into with Photoshop.
A self-deprecating joke may be necessary to deflect certain questions and release tension. Or maybe we’ll see Catherine again soon, in a way that makes her less likely to cause trouble.
It could also raise questions about what people should realistically expect from royalty.
Perhaps more honesty is needed on both sides. The covers wanted a silent and flawless Kate, but there is also Catherine, a woman recovering from an illness and with real-life problems. What is she supposed to look like?
But all this is not necessarily going away, says Simon Lewis, the palace’s former head of communications.
“I always think that real crises are like big waves crashing: They hit you, you get up, you shake yourself off, and then you wonder if another wave is coming,” Lewis says.
“And I think because it’s so global, I wouldn’t be surprised if another wave came.”