Lifestyle

The queen has ‘beautiful skin’ and a ‘girlish’ personality, photographer David Bailey says

16 Mar 2022

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II poses for a photograph.

Gulf Today Report

Photographer David Bailey, who previously photographed the Queen and Princess Diana, has said the monarch has “beautiful skin” and a “girlish” personality.

He also recalled a 1988 photoshoot with the late Princess of Wales, remarking that she had “terrible hair” due to an overload of hairspray which had left her blonde bob “solid as a plastic dummy”.

One unseen photograph from the shoot is currently on display at Kensington Palace for the first time in a new exhibition named Life Through a Royal Lens.

In the photograph, Diana is captured side on wearing a satin one-shoulder dress and drop earrings.

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In an interview with The Telegraph on Tuesday 15 March, Bailey revealed that his assistant had accidentally dropped a light on Diana’s head during the shoot.

He said the princess was understanding and had reassured his assistant afterwards. “She said: ‘Don’t think about it; it was a terrible accident’. I told her she had been very magnanimous – that’s right, because she asked me what magnanimous meant,” he recalled.

Bailey later photographed Queen Elizabeth in 2014 for her 88th birthday portrait.

The photographer, who often uses humour to loosen up his subjects and make them feel more comfortable, said he had asked the monarch if “the jewels” were real.

In the birthday portrait, the Queen wears her signature pearl necklace and a matching brooch.

“I said: ‘I bet that cost a few bob, girl’,” Bailey said. When asked if he had really called Her Majesty “girl”, he said she was “girlish”.

“It just came out. I call everyone ‘girl’. But she was girlish. Made a real effort. We had a laugh. Beautiful skin, the Queen.”

The Life Through a Royal Lens exhibition also showcases portraits of other royal family members, as it attempts to explore the monarchy’s relationship with the camera over the decades.

A black and white photograph of the Queen, taken by light artist Chris Levine in 2004, has been included in the exhibit. In the portrait she wears the George IV State Diadem as she looks straight ahead at the camera.

As well as royal portraiture, the exhibition – which is open from 4 March until the end of October – also includes intimate family photographs.