It’s been more than two months since the Princess of Wales’s Mother’s Day photo fiasco. It’s still crazy to me that all of it went down on Oscar weekend, and that the royal fiasco completely overshadowed the Oscars that night and the day after. On Oscar night, Reuters, the Associated Press, AFP and Getty all “killed” the frankenphoto which was issued by Kensington Palace. The agencies killed the pic after the palace refused to show them the original image or give those agencies any sort of information. Basically, Kensington Palace created a hacked-together frankenphoto, lied about it repeatedly, then froze when questioned. Hours later, “Kate” took the blame for “editing” the photo in a tweet. Since then, KP has changed the way they issue photos – they no longer give media outlets or agencies “handouts.” Now the palace just posts photos on social media and lies about when the photos were taken and no one is saying sh-t about it. Additionally, photo agencies are reviewing all previously-issued palace photos (and finding that many were manipulated too).
So, there’s a new royal portrait exhibition at Buckingham Palace, and the curator of the exhibit sort of went on the record about the Mother’s Day frankenphoto. For more than two months, Kensington Palace has been trying to rewrite this whole narrative and minimize how badly they f–ked up. As you can imagine, the curator parrots some palace talking points.
The curator of a new exhibition of royal portraits at Buckingham Palace has defended the practice of retouching images despite controversy over a Mother’s Day photo taken by Prince William.
Alessandro Nasini, the curator behind the exhibition celebrating 100 years of royal portrait photographs, said retouching – which can vary from simply cropping an image to removing entire backgrounds – remains a vital tool in royal portrait photography. Many of the photos on display to the public at the King’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, from today have been retouched and notes describe the process.
His comments came two months after five major news and picture agencies issued ‘kill notices’ withdrawing a photograph of the Princess of Wales with her children for Mother’s Day because it had been digitally altered. Kate later admitted she had been experimenting with editing the family photo.
In spite of tougher media guidelines over image manipulation amid concerns that the public has to be able to trust that pictures are genuine in an era of AI and deepfakes, Mr Nasini, curator of photographs at the Royal Collection, said it was a vital tool.
He said: ‘I am not familiar with those particular [media tests] but retouching per se has always been part of photography really since the inception of photography. It’s very important specifically for portrait photography because it’s a creative process. It’s not press photography, it’s not reportage, it’s not commercial photography. It’s just simply a tool that has always been used by photographers to translate their vision, the aesthetics, into the final print. It’s part of the creative process. It’s just one of the tools.’
Mr Nasini was steered away by a PR minder from commenting further on the controversy over the photo of Kate with her children, which came during a period of wild and inaccurate speculation about the whereabouts of the Princess.
Again, we’re not talking about “retouching” or “cropping.” The issue is not that Kensington Palace issued photos where a pimple was removed or the lighting was brightened. KP has been regularly handing out frankenphotos which were hacked together, with whole-ass children being edited it and out. Not to mention that the Mother’s Day photo was specifically issued as proof-of-life and a health update for Kate. It’s insane that all of this has just… gone away, or been put on pause, while the palace frantically tries their revisionist history bullsh-t.
Photos courtesy of Kensington Palace.
-
- Peter Phillips and his wife Autumn Phillips arrive for Gold Cup day, The Festival at Cheltenham Racecourse 2019, Cheltenham Glos,Image: 535596650, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Avalon.red – sales@avalon.red London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 (310) 822 0419 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251 Madrid: +34 91 533 4289, Model Release: no, Credit line: Jules Annan / Avalon
Re-touched my a**. They have cut and pasted people in and did such a crap job that everyone knew it wasn’t real. What a load of crap they are trying and failing to sell.
Precisely this, Susan Collins!
“ – which can vary from simply cropping an image to removing entire backgrounds – “
Please, Mr Nasini, explain how *Kate* was removed in her *Mother’s Day!* photo. How exactly is that editing?
I’ve been thinking about Kate’s cancer announcement video.
And the BRF’s close and strong ties to Russia.
And Russia’s very advanced AI video technology.
Just thinking.
A theory with merit.
It was a “fake” photo, not retouched. These people are trying it again, but Kim Jong Un palace has been put on the historical record.
The paper is putting its own spin on this guy’s words. He states very clearly that he is talking about portrait photography only, and that notes accompany each image where ‘retouching’ has taken place. That is far, far different from the photos issued by KP, and the rota rats know that darned well.
I have never understood those 40th birthday portraits of her – they don’t even look like her! I don’t even care if they are retouched, but why would you want portraits that look like someone else posing as a Victorian ghost?
Those photo’s always freak me out – not just because she look unrecognisable but just WHY would have this theme as official photo’s, for your own private collection yeah fine but for the public???
The black and white ones really scream ‘victorian colonial princess cosplaying’.
That’s what I thought. She seems to be going for the aristo look (Rose?) – she always has to copy others.
I see Rose Hanbury in these portraits more than Kate. Tin foil hat theory (and for S&G), that was the goal all along (by Wills) and once Kate was phased out, the public would not think twice on whether that was Rose H. But that would require Wills to think his way out of a paper bag, which we know he cannot.
Same here @Sarah. Even now I struggle to see the resemblance in those 40th portraits to the every day photos we seek of Kate. They’re just plain weird!
I don’t recognise her in them either but looking at the frankenphoto and comparing things like jawline and eyebrows it does look like the same woman, but the frankenphoto looks wrong as well because she looks too young and healthy, and she didn’t look healthy in the AI which actually looked far more realistic to me. Do we really know what Kate looks like?
Agree. They don’t even look like her, they aren’t flattering, her nose and hair are unrecognizable, and they give off wannabe Scarlett O’Hara slave mistress.
They also are weird to me because we did not get the same photos of William. I don’t think we got a single bday portrait for his 40th. I wonder if these were something she arranged behind his back?
Incompetent staff–not even understanding the basics of royal PR, for which major birthday photos are an integral part–or the big boss (Willie Boy) said no, I’m not doing that. Kate, however, was all over it. Yes please! She said. I want three photos!! And send them round the country so all can see!
There was something so incongruous about the photos together. There was the more modern red dress that felt somewhat Diana-inspired along with the Victorian colonial princess vibe. The juxtaposition was jarring.
Meghan on her 40 birthday asked 40 friends, activists, athletes, artists, and world leaders to help kickoff a global effort by contributing 40 MINUTES OF MENTORSHIP to support women re-entering the workforce. Kate on her birthday spend 2 million on a photoshoot that suppose to make her look good
No, portraits are not press photos. We assume that portraits are retouched. But the Mother’s Day photo was released as a press photo to agencies, not as a portrait.
People would still have noticed the childishly bad photoshop job, but it wouldn’t have been killed by international press.
Jenny, ITA. I found it interesting that he was very clear about what type of photos these are: “It’s very important specifically for portrait photography because it’s a creative process. It’s not press photography, it’s not reportage, it’s not commercial photography.”
But in this case, it was for the purpose of press photography bc they gave it to the press. This wasn’t some creative and artistic endeavor, omg. And it wasn’t just some cute re-touching. It was a cut and paste frankenphoto. KP has zero credibility. But sure they can put all their fake photos up on their insta account.
I don’t under how they didn’t just hire a professional graphic designer or or company with an excellent photo retouching / creating team and have them sign an NDA.
Their incompetence is jockeying for position with their egos.
I think this is why the “press minder” dragged him away, because I imagine the next question was going to be about that distinction, lol.
This person seems to be saying that in photography for ART purposes there is always going to be some retouching, some artistic license, etc. And I think we can all agree with that. I mean heck, Henry VIII might have some thoughts on Anne of Cleves’ portrait, lol. (please do not @ me with a history lesson Henry VIII people, it’s a joke.)
No one thinks Charles is actually dripping in blood (well that was a painting not a photograph but still). No one thinks that Kate waltzes around looking like a Victorian ghost in shades of grey every day. We understand when something is being presented as “art.”
The issue is – the frankenphoto wasn’t presented as “art.” It was presented as “look how well Kate is doing! Thank you for the well wishes! Happy Mothers Day!”
and it wasn’t just some retouching, it was completely doctored. There is a huge difference there as we have discussed ad nauseum over these last few months.
Right? An art curator really has nothing to do with the situation. The photo was not intended as a piece of artwork😂
They are deliberately ignoring the issue which was never that the photo was retouched, it was that the photo, as claimed, never existed. William did not take that picture and Kate did not retouch it. Someone cobbled together a photo and presented it as proof of life. They didn’t just manipulate a photo they lied about it.
It reminds me of the whole narrative around Kate being missing for months. Now that the C word is out suddenly we’re not allowed to question any of the nonsense that went on and on, the lies, the misdirection, the “we’ll tell you when we tell you” directives coming from KP. Kate has cancer so any questions are people being cruel and intrusive.
Sue, good point about them deliberately missing the point. And also about the fact that we have not seen Kate in months. The last time she was verifiably seen was 25 December 2023. Everything we have heard or presumably seen since then has been really weird. This explanation from Alessandro Nasini is not helping.
The way you said that @sue. That the photo, as claimed, never existed. The film Back to the Future just popped into my head. The photo of the family ceasing to exist as each person disappears. That moment in the frankenphoto just doesn’t exist and that’s the issue.
It was a deliberate attempt to deceive people that she was fit and well. It seems rather strange when she still hasn’t emerged from wherever she is. If she was as fit as she looked in the photo she could have gone back to work.
They keep gaslighting. This is Trump’s “locker room talk” excuse for bragging about sexual assault.
No, not everyone does completely fake photos that never happened, KP.
I still firmly believe that the press was FAR more mad about the bogus “Copyright: Prince of Wales, 2024” than they ever were about the photoshop hack job.
Real journalists and sites like AP, Getty, etc. take copyright stuff VERY serious. There’s a ton of money and whole branches of law dedicated to image ownership and litigation.
It still infuriates me how the BM and derangers try to frame it as retouching. KP stated that Peg took that picture days before of Kate and the kids. No paez pf the statement was true. The comparison to NK and Iran was very apt, because only the most deranged dictators would try to pass off such bold faced lies. Dictators know it doesn’t matter because their cronies will make people ‘believe’ the lies. Same with the RF. They know the BM will prop up their facade no matter what. They would have done the same with the frankenphoto, but the internationam attention on missing Kate forced their hands.
That’s the BRF’s gaslighting strategy: reframe the issue into something that fits their agenda — e.g. make it about retouching or artistic choices rather than about a franken-photo that’s meant to deceive the public about Kate well-being. But the public caught on this time and refused to let KP shift the terms of the issue/debate.
As the agencies said back then – retouching is not the problem.
Lying about faking (parts of) a photo is though.
And Pete Souza pointed out that the process of creating something that isn’t there is not *photoshopping*. Nor can this process be called editing.
Mr Nasini’s insistence on parroting KP’s talking points show that these people don’t get that these photos are historical documents, for better or worse.
And things like Confederate War Widow and cosplaying Empress Sisi’s Winterhalter portrait, or (great-) granny with the kids just don’t cut it.
Slightly OT: I only just noticed that red sweater Fakey is holding a Fujifilm camera. I thought the Derangedeers swore up and down it was a Leica.
🙄
@Nanea, it’s a Fujifilm, model X-T, looks like X-T3 (model 3 came out in 2018) and in case it mysteriously turns into a Leica at some point, this is what it was when the photo was originally released. At the time I looked closely at what Kate held and was surprised it wasn’t something more traditional/mainstream like a Nikon, or possibly Canon. As I recall, the photographer who took this shot was a Fuji ambassador, and I wondered if this was really her camera, or if he’d given her one of his to hold for the picture. Haven’t followed camera technology for a while, but my vague recollection is, Leica was slow catching up with the automatic features becoming more common at the time, and, for whatever reason, when I’ve seen Kate’s past kid photos, I’ve always thought, eye autofocus.
Harry might have a Leica, but in any event, we know Misan Harriman does, because at an event she did with him last December, Meghan told the story of Misan showing Archie how to use a camera, and Archie told her, he didn’t want what she had bought him, he wanted a Leica!
Let’s just say it: it would not have been a problem except that it looked like Kate’s whole head came from another photo. No-one could be sure that she was really there, when people were speculating that she might be dead.
And TMZ had the nerve to say it couldn’t possibly be from the Vogue cover when Kate hadn’t looked like that in years and KP had a full contact sheet of alternate shots from that shoot to pull from! They knew it was BS and still went out and said that!
Yet TMZ thought the farm shop was Kate 🤣 such liars.
Historical revisionism is the royal family’s specialty. They excel at it. In this day and age they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.
They’ve been exceptionally successful at it. The internet itself has been scrubbed of reality, and the stories that pop up always favor the propaganda they’re selling.
As incompetent as they are at PR, they’re excellent at rewriting historical record. But I guess they’ve been at that for centuries.
I would argue that while they may seem narrowly incompetent at PR, this doesn’t matter all that much to them because they have the power of the state behind them, doing their bidding. The government, the judicial system, the church, the media, etc all working to rewrite history in their favour. It’s hard power and they know how to use it. They always have.
Alex, I agree that they have so much power… in the U.K.
But they see themselves as a powerful empire, with weight to throw around on the global stage, and that has been severely diminished, due in part to Charles and Camilla’s delusions that the rest of the world press would follow the agenda they set in Britain.
It’s not happening that way, add on Brexit and the isolation is just increased by their refusal to deal with reality and bad PR. This is not what they want, so in that way, it is a fail.
I totally agree with you. I’m just looking at it from one perspective, the real political power that the monarchy wields. The fact the UK’s place in the world is greatly diminished, makes them more dangerous in my opinion because they are delusional. I do also believe it’s really important to use soft power to counter their narrative. I hate the fact they get to write history.
Alex, I couldn’t agree more. The power they have to rewrite history is frightening. I notice it every day in small to big things.
The burying of the Diana interview is a glaring example, but there are so many smaller stories that get buried nearly.
It sure was swell of Kate to pick up her phone on her sick bed to tweet and take all of the blame regarding this photo that never happened.
Gee whiz what a great gal to take the fall.
Where is Kate, btw?
Curious to see the end of year engagement numbers, see if that tweet gets counted for Kate.
Cleanup on aisle 9! This curator, who’s doing janitorial work trying to clean up KP’s bs, isn’t going to reverse the kill orders issued by 4 International press agencies, nor change CNN’s labeling of KP as an untrusted news source. These tactics just remind people of that KP has been using frankenphotos for years, that KP has been exposed as flagrant liars, and no reputable agency is going to risk their reputation again. So verify, verify, verify! And instead of getting their act together and start telling the truth, KP is using other SM platforms instead for their propaganda. Why would anyone take any of these people seriously?
Most people, especially loyalists, don’t understand that Frankenphoto wasn’t simply re-touched. Frankenphoto was called out by major reliable media sources because because KP literally cut and pasted Kate and the kids into a pic that never existed at a point when people where concerned about her welfare. (I will always believe Will-not took credit for the photo because it was originally a pic of him with the kids and he is so twisted he thought it was funny to take credit for having her edited over a pic of him). The Windsors are part of history and altering photos alters the historic record/narrative. KPs Instagram has some hilariously bad editing.
I don’t think Annie Leibovitz changing out the background as a result of having limited amount of time with the Queen is the same as the frankenphoto. For one thing Leibovitz’s session is featured in a documentary so we can see what she did.
You can hire a renowned fashion photographer to shot your 40 birthday portrait photos (and ask him to “retouch” those photos to the h3ll & back), but when you don’t have IT, it just not anything special. (Same with the British Vogue cover shots.) Compared to Rose H’s photos from her modeling days, Rose looked striking in them.
“Many of the photos on display to the public at the King’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, from today have been retouched and notes describe the process.” But KP’s released photos never disclosed the process, did they? And because they are Royal Family, any pictures they release will have historical value in them, they’re not just everyday people sharing pictures.
Meanwhile.. where is Kate ? Or anyone else in their family besides Big Willie
It’s so disingenuous to keep saying “retouched” and then slip in “removing entire backgrounds”. The two recent birthday pictures for Louis and Charlotte are also laughably manipulated but no one took them to task for it. Princess Catherine and her two youngest children haven’t been seen since Christmas Day 2023 and somehow that isn’t a problem because we’ll chop and change our stock photos to pacify the masses.
William is an Apache pilot! The king’s portrait isn’t a dismembered head in a pool of blood, how dare you bring up that scandalous moment when the king and queen had their privacy intruded upon during a private phone
conversation! Any similarities between Rose Hanbury and Keen Top CEOs, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Clearly it’s a coincidence that the marchioness donned a hat similar to the one POW wore to such fine effect on Remembrance Day; such a good friend and neighbour would never bring attention to the way the newspapers maliciously aged Kate’s face to make her look elderly -in a sweet nod to Queen Elizabeth II, of course, royal photos are always “retouched” don’t you know…
😄
Remember that year, we were told Kate and William would share a birthday celebration later? Did that ever happen?
this year, before Kate’s surgery, there was no announcement for her birthday. No photo. No loving message from her husband?
So they’ve always been dishonest? Right, okay …
If this was Meghan doing this the Palace and this curator would be throwing her under the bus. Anyway, where’s Kate?
The media are just mind boggling at this point. They literally cover up and print whatever William and the palace want. They keep trying to rewrite narratives and gaslight the public and frankly it’s nauseating. It’s alarming the type of control William/Charles/Camilla have over the media. And while I do not like Kate at all I am literally concerned and want these people held accountable. I don’t understand how this can just happen and the media not ask questions or even remotely criticize all of this we have seen for the last 6 months. It’s all gaslighting, lies, making excuses, fake sightings, embiggoning and on & on.
That picture on Mothers Day never happened. It was cobbled and AI generated. It wasn’t just edited to make them all look good. Yes, I do believe they have been editing and dabbling around with plenty of photoshop and even AI for a long time but this has reached into another territory. I did see some old recent videos that appeared they used a lot work to record a speech by Kate. It was something to do with Early Childhood and it was in response to a speech I think Meghan did. They have always frauded the public but Kate wasn’t physically missing then. Now, they are using their photoshopping and AI generations to fraud the public in a different way because she IS literally missing.
I don’t understand why the media haven’t questioned any of this. And even they have went out of their way to cover it all up and play clean up for Huevo.
I did see an article about Rose Hanbury back on I believe March 24th, 2019 in response to Dan Wootens initial article about the affair and rift between Rose and Kate. The article basically said in plain language that they really could not report on it because it would rile up the anti-monarchist. I don’t understand why they are such staunch monarchist and turn blind eyes to what happened to Princess Diana, Meghan and now Kate missing from thin air.
The tabloids and even “ legit” papers tend to be Tory owned, Tories support the monarchy and aristocracy over all else. They cleverly use the power of tabloid journalist to set agendas within their country for casual readers.
It’s all a system that was designed to keep conservatives in power and has been really effective for a long time, but is showing signs of fraying after the propaganda keeps getting outed recently.
the royals and aristocracy use that power to enrich themselves. There’s a lot at stake for them, they don’t give a toss about fairness or truth, they don’t care about Diana or Kate or Meghan.
That makes sense. I guess I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I’m glad it’s at least starting to fray. I just can’t imagine there are so many ignorant or naive people that fall for all their propaganda and lies especially now.
Julianna, I know, I feel the same way! it’s hard to believe the power of propaganda from the outside. But on the inside, it’s insidious and brutally effective on people.
Almost every western country is dealing with it right now from neo fascists, though. It’s meant to divide and weaken opposition, and it disappoints me that people let themselves be taken in by “othering” it’s like they all missed history class.
Withtheamerican & Julianna – what this drama has highlighted for me is how many lack critical thinking skills and will go along with the narrative that’s spun.
And how controlled the media here in the UK is. It’s appalling. And I don’t see a change of government making any difference. Every party is corrupt. Just like the rf.
“Mr Nasini was steered away by a PR minder from commenting further on the controversy over the photo of Kate with her children…”
—. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAH
And what would the notes on the Franken-photo say?
#WheresKate