Royal photographer reveals the “most difficult royal” to photograph
A royal photographer is spilling the beans on what some of the world’s most famous royals are like away from the camera.
In his new book, My Life Photographing Royalty And The Famous, Reginald Davis, who worked as a royal photographer for 40 years, reveals some intimate behind-the-scene details of last century’s most popular princesses.
He called Princess Grace of Monaco as “the most difficult royal I ever photographed.”
“She only agreed to a private audience because I had previously had a private audience with the Queen,” he continued, according to the Daily Express.
“Everyone wanted to shoot Grace,” he said. “She was such an attractive woman, why be so haughty, arrogant and awkward?
“Of course, you’d never know that from looking at her face” he said. “(In the photo) she seems every inch the relaxed, happy mother.”
Davis’ favourite person to shoot was none other than Queen Elizabeth’s younger sister, Princess Margaret.
“She was just so vibrant — and had these beautiful azure eyes,” he said. “She really was the Diana of her day. Everything I took of her was in demand.”
After training as a photographer with the Royal Navy during WWII, Davis joined the Daily Express in 1949.
He first photographed the Queen in 1959 and during the next four decades, he became a royal photographer accompanying the family on state visits and royal tours around the world.
“I’d been invited to Windsor Castle to photograph the family in the gardens. I had this idea of sitting them all on the grass," he recalled.
“But the ground was so wet I had to get something for them to sit on,” Davis said. “All I could find was a Persian rug.
“When Prince Philip saw it he wanted to know: ‘Whatever is a Persian carpet doing in the middle of Windsor?’
“Thankfully the Queen eased the situation, saying to the two younger boys [Princes Andrew and Edward]: ‘Come along children, let’s sit on the magic carpet and fly away.;"