Does manipulation matter?

On March 10 2024, Mothering Sunday in the UK, we saw a photograph of the Princess of Wales and her three children issued by Kensington House. It was the first official image issued since the princess had been in hospital for abdominal surgery. Within hours of the photo being issued, sharp-eyed observers noticed a few issues with the photograph, taken by the Prince of Wales, that suggested the picture had been manipulated.

There are four obvious issues with the shot. The princess’s right hand is out of focus and doesn’t appear in the same focal plane as the rest of the image. The line of Prince Louis’s jumper appears to have been cut out. Princess Charlotte’s dress appears to float in fresh air on her right-hand side. Charlotte’s left sleeve has a chunk missing from the knit pattern. At first glance, it appears to be a pretty poor editing job of a reasonably lovely family portrait.

However, within a few hours, five leading photo agencies—Getty, Associated Press, France-Presse, Shutterstock, and Reuters—had issued a ‘kill notice’ asking media users not to use the photograph as it appeared to be manipulated. Twenty-four hours later, the Press Association also issued a kill notice as Kensington Palace had not explained why the image appeared to have issues. The question many people are asking is why does it matter.

Hasn’t manipulation always been a thing?

Anyone starting their photography journey will quickly dip into using editing software. Any photograph shot in RAW format has to be manipulated by some software to make it usable. Once it’s in the software, there are hundreds of ways to ‘change’ the image. There are simple changes that can change the brightness, contrast, saturation, etc. More complicated changes can also remove skin blemishes, remove creases in clothes, or even improve the weather.

This isn’t just a development of digital photography either. In the analogue film days, changing the photograph was just as possible. Many Hollywood stars had reputations made with subtle image manipulation to make their faces look picture-perfect.

All these tools and techniques are terrific for wedding photographers who can add polish to images. Camera club competitions thrive on the ability to tweak photos to add an extra point or two to scores (as long as the edits are good). So, if we agree that manipulation always happens, why do these poorly executed edits of the royal photo cause an issue?

The difference between a news image and a memento image

Press photographers are journalists. As journalists, photographers sign up to a code of conduct. The code of conduct is designed so that people reading newspapers or websites can believe what is published. I am a member of the National Union of Journalists, and two parts of the code are relevant to this particular image. We strive to ensure that information disseminated is honestly conveyed, accurate and fair. We do our utmost to correct harmful inaccuracies.

From a photography perspective, we can make simple changes such as removing shadows, reducing highlights, or adjusting the exposure. We can also crop an image to strengthen the composition. What we can’t do is either remove or add something to the photograph. So, if the image issued by Kensington Palace is a news image, it is problematic. There have been some clear attempts to add or take away elements of the photograph.

Was the picture news or memento?

The agencies have issued a ‘kill’ notice to the image because they considered the image to be for news and not a memento. I agree with them, and here’s why. Suppose the family had only issued the photograph on social media platforms with the lovely Mother’s Day message (as they did). In that case, there are grounds for this being considered a memento image.

It became a news image when Kensington Palace issued it for distribution to the photo agencies. The aim of issuing the shot to agencies appears to be to stop conspiracy theories and rumours about the princess’s health. With this aim, the image becomes one that is for news rather than a nice family portrait.

The Kensington Palace response

As I am typing, a tweet has been issued from the Kensington Royal account with a statement from The Princess of Wales. “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.”. In a further statement to the Press Association, Kensington Palace has said it would not redistribute the original unedited image.

I am sure Kensington Palace hopes this will draw a line under the issue, but there will be consequences for the Royal Family. The reason journalists sign up to their code of conduct is to provide confidence that what you read and watch is believable. When it is found that journalists have broken their code, it hits people’s trust in the press. The same could be true of the Royal Family. Whilst the changes appear relatively insignificant, seeing the original image (with simple changes) would help meet the third element of the NUJ code of conduct to correct inaccuracies.

What should happen now?

I would do a couple of things if I were sitting in Kensington Palace. The first would be to commission an official family portrait of the family by a trusted photographer. Often, news images are taken by a ‘pool’ photographer. A photographer from one of the large agencies will be selected to take photographs, which will then be issued to all the rest of the agencies for distribution. The photographer will be familiar with the requirements for editing images for the press and will be seen as a ‘true’ image of the family.

Secondly, the Palace should familiarise itself with the expectations of press photographs. The Princess of Wales is an enthusiastic photographer – she is the Patron of the Royal Photographic Society. Her press team should ensure that any images taken by or edited by the Princess meet the expectations of the press agencies when images are being submitted to them.

Finally, I suggest that the Princess get a few editing lessons so her memento images don’t have as many manipulation issues. I am more than happy to offer one of my virtual workshops to the Princess to help her get better results. If you’d like to edit better than royalty, then you can also book a session.

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About the author

As well as running Edinburgh Photography Workshop, Rich Dyson is a professional photographer. His photographs are regularly used in newspapers such as The Times, the Guardian, and the Daily Telegraph. He has also had two solo exhibitions and was featured in a members-sponsored exhibition in the Scottish Parliament. You can see and buy his photography at richdysonphotography.com.