Manipulating real photographs is nothing new. The official photos have been modified over the decades, to flatter the model, of course.
In January 1852, Queen Victoria asked London fashion photographer William Kilburn to capture her sitting with her five eldest children.
Like Kate’s Mother’s Day photo, the children posed on either side of her, but unlike Kate, the resulting image showed Victoria sitting with her eyes closed.
She looked scared and, as expected, she wasn’t amused.
The Mother’s Day photo that caused a stir among the Princes of Wales
Another royal photograph showing the late queen with her great-grandchildren was found to have been doctored. Some of the many telltale signs that the original had been altered have been circled.
With nine children and 40 grandchildren, it was difficult to organize group photographs of Queen Victoria and her family. Especially in the latter part of her reign, photographers would resort to deception.
At the end of its long life, Victoria’s loyal photographers would retouch the images. They trimmed her waist, removed her wrinkles, the bags under her eyes and one of her double chins. They also added extra hair.
“Mine was unfortunately horrible, but the children’s were beautiful,” she said.
Not wanting anyone to see such lèse majesté, Victoria erased her face from the daguerreotype image, the first known example of editing real photographs.
With nine children and eventually 40 grandchildren, group photographs of the Queen and her family were a logistical nightmare.
Newspaper agencies and editors would resort to photo montages showing the elderly monarch surrounded by her descendants at a meeting that never actually occurred.
At the end of her long life, Victoria’s faithful photographers retouched the images they had taken, trimming her waist, removing her wrinkles along with the bags under her eyes and one of her double chin, as well as adding extra hair.
Thanks to her skill, Victoria, then in her seventies, looked fresh in her official Diamond Jubilee photograph.
The tiny monarch, who stood less than five feet tall, grew taller for the cameras by standing on a box.
Victoria’s daughter-in-law, Princess Alexandra, was another who attempted to maintain her youthful appearance well into old age, persuading photographers to retouch her images.
Official photographs from her 1902 coronation made the 57-year-old Alexandra look several years younger.
Edward VII’s wife often appeared with smooth skin and slender waists like his three daughters in family portraits.
Queen Elizabeth, later Queen Mother, was almost 39 when Cecil Beaton took a series of iconic images at Buckingham Palace.
To the casual observer, the images suggest a woman in her 30s. Thanks, of course, to the society photographer’s flattering touch-ups.
‘Can you do much later?’ the Queen had asked, which was more or less a royal decree.
Equally flattering images emerged from a post-war session when she was 48.
Victoria’s daughter-in-law Alexandra tried to maintain her youthful appeal well into old age, asking photographers to retouch her images. In this 1902 portrait, Alexandra wears the crown created especially for her coronation and features the Koh-i-Noor diamond.
In some family portraits, Alexandra, seated, could appear as smooth and slender-waisted as her three daughters.
“For many years, every photograph of the Queen Mother taken by Beaton and chosen for publication was retouched,” said his biographer, Michael De-La-Noy.
Beaton used natural light, shining through the future Queen Mother’s crinoline dresses to create a slimming effect.
Another royal favorite, Norman Parkinson, used what he called “magic light” to soften the features of his royal models.
Princess Margaret was photographed by ‘Parks’ in the summer of 1978 on the occasion of her upcoming tour of Tuvalu.
At that time it was commented that he had a fresh face and was somewhat younger than his 48 years, something that was suspicious.
Two years later, he photographed Margaret with her mother and sister in a memorable series of images to mark the Queen Mother’s 80th birthday.
Taken at the Royal Lodge in Windsor, Parks used sunlight and fill flash to create a flattering image.
When it came to photographs of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, a much-repeated approach was to superimpose two separate images (taken in the same session), one on top of the other.
This can be seen, for example, in the commission Parkinson made for the Post Office, which will be used on a series of stamps commemorating his Silver Jubilee in 1972.
The Queen’s photographer cousin, Patrick Lichfield, used the same trick in November 2001 in a shoot for the upcoming Golden Jubilee in 2002.
Again two separate photographs were taken, this time digital, and then superimposed.
Lord Lichfield also took a memorable group photo of the extended royal family at Windsor during the 1971 Christmas holidays to mark the Queen’s upcoming silver wedding anniversary.
There wasn’t enough space to take a single photograph, so Lichfield took three separate shots of the group and then cleverly stitched them together into a single composition.
At the dawn of the new millennium, the increased use of digital photography made such manipulation comparatively easy.
According to biographer Michael De-La-Noy, all of Beaton’s published photographs of the Queen Mother had been retouched.
Another royal favorite, Norman Parkinson, used “magic light” to soften the features of his royal models.
A quarter of a century before the Prince of Wales took the problematic Mother’s Day photo, William himself made headlines when he was digitally manipulated at his uncle Edward’s wedding to Sophie Rhys-Jones.
Unlike Kate’s photos, there was no media storm and the story was treated cheerfully by the media.
The photographer who took the official family photo was Sir Geoffrey Shakerley, who was married to the Queen’s cousin, Lady Elizabeth Anson.
He said Prince Edward decided his nephew “wasn’t looking his best,” so the photo was digitally altered to replace William’s face with one from another shot in which he is smiling.
In an interview on ITN News, Shakerley stated
“Prince Edward said he didn’t think Prince William looked his absolute best, so we were able to digitally place another image of Prince William from one of the other shots where he is smiling and laughing.”
The Princess of Wales is a skilled amateur photographer.
Having studied art history at the University of St Andrews, he has a natural talent for composition, use of color and the ability to relax his sitter.
While his photographs of William and their children, as well as those of Charles and Camilla and the late Queen and Prince Philip, have been widely praised, one or two have been criticized for unprofessional photo editing.
In summer 2022, Kate took an iconic photo of the late Queen taken at Balmoral in the final weeks of her life and published in April 2023 to mark what would have been the late Queen’s 97th birthday.
A repeated theme with the photographs of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip was superimposing one photograph on top of another.
While many applauded the casual shot showing Queen Elizabeth with two of her grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren, the photo sparked some negative comments from the public.
However, many felt it would have been necessary to cut and paste the photo, as getting ten young children to pose happily is akin to herding cats.
More importantly, Kate wouldn’t have wanted to subject William’s fragile grandmother to a long photo session.
And, as we have seen, it was nothing new.