The photo posted by Kate Middleton on Mother’s Day is still causing a stir because it was unpublished shorty after due to editing.
“Professional photographer here. Look closely at Princess Charlotte’s wrist. This is what happens when you composite layers in Photoshop. I’m not speculating on why the photo was edited like this, but it’s weird,” portrait photographer Martin Bamford wrote on X.
The Princess took “the blame” for manipulating the photo.
“Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing. 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.”, she wrote on her and William’s official X account.
After that, Kensington Palace confirmed it “would not be reissuing the original unedited photograph of Kate and her children.”
The Associated Press, Reuters, Getty Images, and Agence France-Presse all decided to issue “kill notices,” which are advisory notices to remove or not use a specific photo.
“It appears that the source has manipulated the image,” the Associated Press notification read.
Additionally, they released a statement, saying, “The Associated Press initially published the photo, which was issued by Kensington Palace. The AP later retracted the image because at closer inspection, it appears that the source had manipulated the image in a way that did not meet AP’s photo standards. The photo shows an inconsistency in the alignment of Princess Charlotte’s left hand.”
The royal expert Katie Nicholl shared that the Palace would be under much pressure following the issue with the photo.
“What’s so major in all of this is that four international picture agencies have killed this image. That’s really rare,” Nicholl said.
“I can’t think of a a time since I’ve been doing this job for the best part of 15 years where a royal image has been recalled. So that’s highly unusual. It might force Kensington Palace’s hand.”
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Media Show,AFP’s global news director, Phil Chetwynd, said that Kensington Palace is no longer a trusted source.
“No, absolutely not. Like with anything, when you’re let down by a source the bar is raised … We sent out notes to all our teams at the moment to be absolutely super more vigilant about the content coming across our desk — even from what we would call trusted sources,” he said, according to Deadline.
He added that k!ll notices are usually reserved for sources such as North Korea.
“To k!ll something on the basis of manipulation [is rare. We do it] once a year maybe, I hope less. The previous k!lls we’ve had have been from the North Korean news agency or the Iranian news agency,” Chetwynd added.
“One thing that’s really important is you cannot be distorting reality for the public. There’s a question of trust. And the big issue here is one of trust, and the lack of trust and the falling trust of the general public in institutions generally and in the media. And so it’s extremely important that a photo does represent broadly the reality that it’s seen in,” he concluded.
