Royal Photographer Reveals the Story Behind Princess Diana’s ‘Favorite’ Photo They Ever Took of Her

Princess Diana became the subject of many pictures during her lifetime but even she had her favorites. According to a longtime photographer whose snaps of the late royal are being showcased in a new exhibition, Diana loved one of their images of her in particular. Not the memorable “revenge dress,” which they also snapped her in, or her royal wedding dress. Rather, an image that put the spotlight on her “humanitarian side.” 

Diana’s ‘favorite’ picture of herself is from a 1996 trip to Pakistan

Speaking to CNN about his new Diana photo exhibition, royal photographer Anwar Hussein, who began taking the royal’s picture when she was just 19, shared which snapshot she enjoyed most. 

“This was Diana’s favorite,” he said, looking at an image of Diana holding a young cancer patient at a Lahore, Pakistan, hospital in 1996. 

“The boy was blind. He smelled of all these chemicals they had been using,” Hussein recalled. “But she didn’t care and she cuddled him. Later on, he died, and she was very sad about that. It shows her humanitarian side.”

A year after Hussein took the photo, Diana described herself as a “humanitarian figure” in an interview, saying: “The fact is I’m a humanitarian figure. Always have been and always will be.”

Hussein, whose two sons Samir and Zak are now royal photographers, is displaying a curated selection of his Diana photos at Dockside Vaults in London, England, from May 25-Sept. 2, 2024. 

Diana cherished another photo taken by a royal photographer

Jayne Fincher is another longtime royal photographer to have captured a picture Diana loved. It happened in October 1991 when Diana and King Charles III, who wouldn’t announce their separation for another year, made an official visit to Canada. 

Along for the visit were their sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, who were 9 and 7 at the time. While most other royal photographers put their cameras down, Fincher kept hers trained on Diana as she boarded a yacht in Toronto to be reunited with the now-Prince of Wales and now-Duke of Sussex. 

​​”The boys burst out of the doors, and Diana spotted them,” Fincher told Today. “And she ran the length of the yacht going, ‘Ooooh!’ Like, ‘My boys!’” 

“I think she had that in a frame above her dressing room,” she added. “It was lovely to see them together because she was very joyous. They were obviously absolutely the apples of her eyes, and there was a lot of laughter.”

Prince William and Prince Harry have different pictures of Diana on display at home 

Although estranged, Diana’s sons have at least one thing in common these days: they both have photos of their late mother on display at home. 

In a scene from his 2021 The Me You Can’t See AppleTV+ docuseries, Harry shared that he and Meghan Markle, 42, hung a photo of Diana in their now-5-year-old son Prince Archie’s bedroom. 

“I got a photo of her in his nursery, and it was one of the first words that he said—apart from ‘mama,’ ‘papa,’ it was then ‘grandma.’ Grandma Diana,” Harry said (via People). “It’s the sweetest thing. But at the same time, it makes me really sad because she should be here.” 

Later, in the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s 2022 Harry & Meghan Netflix docuseries, cameras revealed which picture of Diana is in Archie’s room. In a scene from the first installment, Meghan held Archie and looked at a black-and-white portrait of Diana wearing a white strapless gown.

“Who’s that?” Meghan asked as Archie touched the image of the late royal taken by Patrick Demarchelier before adding, “Hey, grandma. That’s grandma Diana.” 

As for the Prince of Wales, he has at least one family photo featuring Diana in his Kensington Palace home. (Apartment 1A is the Wales family’s official London, England, property. Their primary residence is Adelaide Cottage in Windsor, England.)

Fans spotted a black-and-white image of William, Harry, and Diana in the Prince and Princess of Wales’s behind-the-scenes 2023 coronation video (via Newsweek). It sat among a collection of other family photos on a piano in one of the reception rooms. 

Believed to be a favorite of the late royal, Diana used the same snapshot for her official 1995 Christmas card and kept a framed copy on her desk.