Lucy Worsley's Royal Photo Album

Lucy Worsley takes us through the story of the royal photograph – showing how the royal family collaborated with generations of photographers to create images that reinvented the British monarchy. Lucy explores the key types of photo that have enabled the royal family to conduct a dialogue with the British people, forging a modern monarchy that reigns rather than rules. Along the way, she recreates the Queen’s coronation portrait, digs out some of the most photogenic outfits from the royal ceremonial dress collection, has her own Victorian-style picture taken, and learns the tricks of the trade from leading royal photographers Anwar Hussein and Chris Jackson. Lucy begins with the story behind one of the most iconic images of the post-war era, Cecil Beaton’s coronation portrait of Elizabeth II, which conjured a vision of magic and tradition for austerity Britain. Yet within just a few years, the public were beguiled by some very different images - the daringly intimate portraits of Princess Margaret taken by her photographer husband Lord Snowdon. Going back to the mid-19th century, Lucy looks at the earliest photographs of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, taken at a time when monarchies across Europe were under threat. Photography rescued them, showing the British royals as a family rather than aloof rulers. Cheap, collectable reproductions brought pictures of the queen and her consort into ordinary households for the very first time. Lucy also shows how advances in technology encouraged a more informal side to royal photography. In the early 1900s, Princess (later Queen) Alexandra started taking pictures of her family using new, lightweight cameras. The results revealed the royals as they’d never been seen before - on holiday, even almost relaxing. This insider’s approach has been continued by Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, who has published her own pictures on Instagram. Lucy explains how the classic royal photo opportunity – the walkabout – dates back t