Queen Elizabeth Had ‘the Best’ Reason for Not Holding a Sword in Milestone Photo
A photographer just offered some behind-the-scenes details about photographing Queen Elizabeth II. Apparently, the queen nixed an idea about a specific pose. Ahead, details on the image of the queen and her “best” reason for saying no.
Queen Elizabeth didn’t want her hands on display in her 2002 Golden Jubilee photo, photographer says
When celebrity photographer John Rankin Waddell suggested Queen Elizabeth pose with a sword, the late monarch didn’t go for the idea. Waddell, known professionally as Rankin, opened up about his experience taking the queen’s photo in 2002 during the Nov. 14 episode of the Tea with Twiggy podcast.
“I was like, ‘I really want to photograph you holding the sword,’ and she said, ‘I don’t like my hands,’” he recalled. [I thought] that’s the best ‘get out’ for holding the sword.”
“I’m probably not supposed to say that,” he continued. “But what I loved about her is she’s so smart and everything in response that she was saying had this amazing twist to it.”
Rankin had been among 10 photographers commissioned to take the queen’s photo for her Golden Jubilee.
Rankin’s Queen Elizabeth portrait became a palace favorite
Despite Queen Elizabeth rejecting Rankin’s sword pose idea, the picture he took ultimately became a favorite. In the podcast, which was recorded prior to the queen’s death, Rankin revealed he got a “really amazing” note after working on an exhibition earlier in the year.
“The curator said that my photograph of her is one of their favourites [sic], which I think means the palace’s favourites [sic], because she’s really laughing in my picture,” he said.
Rankin also shared Queen Elizabeth’s “great” sense of humor served as inspiration. “She had a really great sort of sense of humour [sic], so that is what I was really looking for when I went to take the photograph.”
As for inspiration, Rankin said it came to him moments before snapping the queen’s photo. He saw her and a footman “laughing, just cracking up, and I was like, ‘That’s what I want.’ So that was in my head the whole time.”
Queen Elizabeth joked about not smiling when her last portrait was taken
After the queen died, photographer Ranald Mackechnie looked back on taking the monarch’s Platinum Jubilee portrait.
Taken at Windsor Castle in May 2022, one month before a long weekend of celebrations, the image became the queen’s last official portrait. Unveiled on June 1, one day before the queen officially marked 70 years on the throne, it showed her smiling in front of a window.
However, as Mackechnie explained, the queen initially joked about not smiling for the camera.
“She arrived and walked in and we said hello, then she just looks at me and she goes, ‘What do you want?’” he recalled (via The Mirror). “I said, ‘Well, I want you to smile and look happy.’ She looked back at me and she goes, ‘You can’t make me.’”
“I said, ‘Well, you could try,’ and she giggled,” the photographer added, saying Queen Elizabeth made it “easy” to snap a good photo.
