Royal photographer Chris Jackson is counting on a bit of luck as he prepares to photograph the coronation of King Charles and Queen Camilla. He won’t know where he’s stationed until much closer to the event, and he doesn’t have much say in his position for the big day, but wherever he is, he’s sure to take pictures for the history books.

However, his favorite types of royal photography are not the big days like the coronation—rather times when the royal family is out of the public eye. “The quieter moments are often the ones that give you most sort of satisfaction,” he tells Town & Country over Zoom.”The quieter moments behind the scenes—because we so often don’t see behind the scenes photos of the royal family—are the photos which probably mean the most to me.”

His new book, Charles III: A King and His Queen, out today, focuses on the big moments, but also the quieter ones, of King Charles and Queen Camilla. While some photographs may be recognizable to the average royal fan, plenty are brand new. “I try my hardest to photograph not just these formal moments, but hopefully, some of them more candid moments, behind the scenes, and something a little bit different. I hope that the book gives you an insight into their character,” Jackson says of his new book. “We were super keen to finish it ahead of the coronation.”

Ahead of the coronation, and the release of Charles III, Jackson chatted with T&C all about the life of a royal photographer—and how he prepares for a momentous royal event.

What do you think people would be most surprised to learn about the career of a royal photographer?

It’s definitely not very glamorous! If there’s a big royal event, you want to get a good position, you need to be down there in advance. There’s generally quite a lot of waiting around, but generally goes quite quickly. You just find yourself doing your emails, not necessarily at home, but on location.

It’s an incredible job, it’s an incredible privilege to some of the places we’ve been to over the years. If you look at the book, there’s some more fairly sort of unexpected moments. One of my favorite shots is the King working in his outdoor office at Highgrove, immersed in the foliage and the stunning flora and fauna you get at Highgrove, which is really beautiful.

One of Jackson’s favorite photos from

Many of the pictures in Charles III have seen before, but some were surprising to me. One of my favorites was seeing someone dress up like a bear to make the little royals smile when you captured King Charles’s 70th birthday portrait. Can you talk about that moment?

I felt a lot of the pictures are not in my previous books, and certainly the ones behind the scenes with the King and the Queen—there’s a lot of moments where I haven’t talked about little things behind the pictures. In that particular picture, it’s always a huge privilege to photograph any kind of family moments with the royal family. Of course, as a photographer, there’s a sense of trepidation, an element of nerves—you want everything to go well on the day and you want them to be happy, smiling children.

We had this idea for the bear. I was delving through various fancy dress shops and online; I brought a bear suit and I went and tried out on my son when he was having a bath, and I think it scared the life out of him. I realized it probably had some rather large teeth. So I swiftly dispatched that bear suit, and managed to find a friendly one.

Obviously, there’s a nice photo of everyone smiling, looking at the camera. It’s nice to be able talk about what was going on in that particular picture. It’s a little bit more candid and relaxed due to the unexpected appearance of Mr. Bear. In the bear suit, I think it’s a senior press officer at the palace—someone who’s normally immaculately dressed. It was quite nice to see him wearing something a little bit more unusual, for sure.

Are there certain tips or tricks you’ve learned in photographing King Charles, something you know will get a good smile?

Obviously photographing certain people for a long time, you learn the different sides of their characters and their behaviors. That’s what’s so lovely about being a royal photographers, you get to know a small group of people quite well, but there’s enough of them to keep a sense of variety in the job.

Charles feeding chickens, one of the photographs in Jackson’s new book.

Certainly I’ve got to know the King’s nuances over the years. He is great to photograph; he has an energy—some days when I’m not feeling great, I wake up in the morning and I go to work and maybe I’m feeling bit like I need a couple of cups of coffee, he is always “on” when he arrives. Queen Elizabeth has obviously passed on a huge amount to the King.

But, this is a special day for all these people he’s meeting; it’s probably the one day they’ll ever meet a member of the royal family. So you need to be on, you need to be engaged, and both of them have a fantastic sense of humor. They immediately build a rapport with many of the people they’re meeting. I hope that comes across in the pictures across different communities. One thing I’ve always admired about [Charles and Camilla] both is they seem to keep calm amongst all this and just crack on and meet as many people as possible. It’s great fun, and it makes it really enjoyable.

What does your preparation look like to photograph these historic moments, like the Platinum Jubilee or Queen Elizabeth’s funeral?

The funny thing is, for lots of these moments, I’ve never experienced. I’ve never been part of a coronation. This is a first for me—a first for everyone. I can only look back to past large royal events, like the Platinum Jubilee in recent memory and take inspiration and experience from these events and royal weddings.

There’s a lot of elements that are similar, and there’s also lots of unexpected. I certainly found that difficult actually covering the passing of Queen Elizabeth. All this was totally new to me, it was particularly poignant time, but you feel like it’s an important and historic period to cover in the best way you possibly can, so you try and do as much as possible. Some of it’s quite difficult, because you don’t quite know how the choreography is going to play out. So often, you find yourself in the wrong place, at the wrong position. You just try and take on board as much information as you can in the run up to these events. I have no doubt that the coronation would be a huge moment of national celebration. It’s a cliché, but you do have a front row seat to the historic moment.

I’m so interested in the logistics of it all! When do you find out where you’re going to be stationed for the coronation? What if you’re like, ‘oh no, I’m not in the spot I wanted to be in’?

[Laughs] That normally happens. I mean, it’s a mix of everything. It is quite complicated—in essence, a lot of the information is learned nearer the time. Details are a closely guarded secret, the choreography of the whole event is released in the run up to the event. I have no doubt it will be a huge success. Where I will be on the day, I don’t know exactly. I’m guessing there might be a balcony moment, I’m guessing there might be some crowning events.

One of the problems, from my point of view, is logistically, it is difficult to get around. Let’s take the royal wedding of Prince William [as an example], a massive moment of national celebration. It’s difficult to move between spots. You have to choose—I was in a very limited position outside the front of Westminster Abbey, but that meant I can’t also do the kiss on the balcony picture. You can’t be everywhere, unless you have some incredible vehicle that gets you through crowds of people. There’s only limited people that can get from A to B on a day like that, because the roads are closed, the crowds are extensive. You have to pick your particular spot.

How do you pick?

For the Platinum Jubilee, Jackson was there to photograph the royals on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.

It’s the eternal problem with being a royal photographer! You have to be there to take the photo, you have to make commitments, you have to throw in a little bit of luck into the mix and hope the spots that you’re in [are good]. I try and look at these positions with ‘how much am I going to get?’ I want to get as much as I can from that particular position, as many moments and as many elements as possible. But then what you’ll probably find is from a different position, there will be a beautiful picture—maybe a standalone picture though.

These big moments are very different day to day royal photography, but they’re also exciting to be a part of. It’s more of a team event, I’d say, with everyone at Getty Images. We cover the event from all possible angles and between us as a team, we create a lovely, incredible set of images. It’s very different to me working on a one on one basis, or on day to day royal engagements. It’s quite different! But that is what I love about royal photography: Throw it all into the mix, throw that variety in, and it makes it great fun.

On days like that where, you know you’re going to be stationed outside Westminster Abbey or at Buckingham Palace, are there certain things you make sure to have with you?

Snacks! Snacks are essential. It’s a good question—for these big events, for the Queen’s funeral, I was up at 4 o’clock in the morning. For the royal wedding, 5 o’clock. You’re there for hours before. Having communication system hardwired from your camera under the road to an editing team, meaning that you can get your images out around the world as quickly as possible, that’s always a huge consideration. Take the Platinum Jubilee concert, it was very difficult to send photographs out. You have to be adept at sending from different networks and having the right communications equipment as well.

Obviously, cameras charged, the right lenses, that’s always the primary consideration. Secondary is communications equipment, the right SIM cards, the right networks. Thirdly is yourself, the right weather gear, tripods, monopods, are you wearing appropriate clothing, suit, tie, food, snacks, water—you often can’t move from the position. That’s pretty much the list, I’d say.

As you prepare for coronation Saturday, what’s your biggest anxiety going into the day?

They are nerve racking, because you have not experienced it before. That lack of knowledge! I know when I go to Royal Ascot, I’ve been going for 20 years, I know where to park, where to be what time, where I’m going to get lunch from—all those different things are really important. It’s the fear of the unknown, but also the excitement of the unknown. And certainly, excitement trumps the fear. It is really lovely being a royal photographer and your job is to be in the midst of these feel good moments, like royal birth or royal weddings. It’s not always like that, but it’s all part of the mix.

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Emily Burack (she/her) is the news writer for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, culture, the royals, and a range of other subjects. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at Hey Alma, a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Twitter and Instagram. 

In the depths of the pandemic, Peter Zurla stumbled into Dante’s “Inferno.”

After falling down the online rabbit hole, the 83-year-old Colorado Springs photographer found himself wrapped up in the classic piece of literature. He tried to read the original text, following Dante through nine circles of hell, but it was tough to understand. So he found other, more digestible translations of the work, and as he read he began to dream about using his old photos to illustrate Dante’s tale.

“Then it becomes this obsession that gets strange,” Zurla said.

He spent two years parsing his photos that stretched back to the ‘70s, manipulating them and creating composites to depict the journey into hell. His new exhibit, “Journey Into Hell — ‘Inferno,’” is open through April at The Garfield Gallery at Garfield School.

Zurla’s passion and talent for photography appeared later in life. He was in his early 40s during the late ‘60s and ‘70s when anti-war protests and the political landscape dominated headlines. Fascinated, he journeyed from New York City to Washington, D.C., where he started doing street photography.

“You’re in the middle of a crowd and smoke bombs are going off,” he said. “I was in my element. A friend was in the newspaper business and they gave me a press pass. I could go anywhere.”

Sharon Webster, his wife, remembers the darkroom Zurla built in his New York City apartment, the city where they met.

“Peter told me long ago he’s always had trouble expressing himself verbally,” she said, “but with photography he could express what he thought and felt.”

But then his photography habit came to a standstill. He put down the camera and didn’t pick it up for almost 50 years. Photos didn’t pay the bills. He had to work. And work he did, at all sorts of odd jobs in New York City and California. He was a hairstylist, a restaurant worker, a personal trainer, an employee at a mountaineering store. He and Webster moved to the Springs in 2002 because her mother was here.

Prostate cancer introduced a new wrinkle into his story. Afterward, his beat-up body could no longer do physical work, so he decided to buy a cheap camera. He wandered around the junkyard and by the railroad tracks, searching and finding interesting objects to capture. Turned out his keen eye for finding good photos was still intact, and his work made it into a few shows, including at Kreuser Gallery and in Pikes Peak Library District exhibits.

“I’m not doing it to make a living,” Zurla said. “I’m doing it because I like doing it and want others to see something I saw that maybe they didn’t see.”

And then came the pandemic, which really affected him psychologically and transformed his work, he says. It took a turn and grew darker, but he didn’t mind. In that darkness he felt creative. Not everyone loved it though. Friends who once enjoyed his photos told him they could no longer look at his work due to its darker nature.

“Before I would take it and hope someone would like it, but now I don’t care if you like it or not,” Zurla said. “It’s what I do. If I can create an emotion inside of you, like ‘oh, I hate it,’ I’ve done what I wanted to do. I had to get to the point where it’s my way of expressing myself.”

Contact the writer: 636-0270

MANILA, Philippines – German artist Boris Eldagsen won the creative competition of the open segment, one among many categories, at the 2023 Sony World Photography Awards (SWPA), with the announcement of the segment’s winners published on March 14, 2023. 

On April 13, 2023, the overall winners for the contest would be announced, and a gala was held in London, UK on April 13. 

While the contest naturally shone the spotlight on some of the world’s best photographers, Eldagsen’s winning piece “Pseudomnesia: The Electrician” has grabbed headlines, as news spreads of his work having been made, intentionally, using an AI image generator.

The news is similar to an image made through AI image generator Midjourney winning the Colorado State Fair’s annual art competition in 2023. 

Amid the coverage that various European news outlets have given the contest’s gala and the subsequent opening of the winner exhibits, Eldagsen’s blog posts have surfaced chronicling his victory, along with his subsequent refusal of the award, and what has become a testy relationship between the artist and the contest organizers.

Plea from the artist to communicate his use of AI

Eldagsen wrote on March 14, the day the winners were publicly announced, that he has been a photographer since 1989, whose “artistic focus has shifted to exploring the creative possibilities of AI generators.” 

“The work SWPA has chosen is the result of a complex interplay of prompt engineering, inpainting and outpainting that draws on my wealth of photographic knowledge,” he wrote. 

Participating in the contest, he said one of his goals is for award organizers to be aware of the differences between photographs and images (under which he categorized his winning work), and “create separate competitions for AI-generated images.” 

Among his concerns were that it wasn’t communicated in the press release that his work had been co-created using AI. 

Much earlier on March 3, a day after SWPA initially informed Eldagsen of winning, the artist wrote that he had communicated to the organizers then that he used an image generator to produce the image.

In his message to SWPA, he wrote that he told them, “Since I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings here, it is important for me to explain in this email the background of the image you have chosen in as much detail as possible…In Germany, I am active as [an] AI expert in the “Deutscher Fotorat” (German Photo Council) to discuss the chances and risks of AI image generators. Perhaps Sony would be interested in taking up the topic for a panel discussion in this context.”

The SWPA’s response to press queries

Responding at the time to press queries regarding Eldagsen’s AI image, Scott Gray, founder and CEO of the World Photography Organization was quoted in an official press statement from the organization: “As a medium, photography has always been at the forefront: constantly adapting and evolving, it has a singular ability to transform itself and push boundaries. 

“We are interested in photography as an art form, and within the Sony World Photography Awards we have our Creative categories in the Professional and Open Competitions which welcome photographers to experiment and explore the dynamism of the medium. 

“With technological advancements, a wider audience of creators are engaging with lens-based work and we look forward to seeing how this can expand the reach and impact of photography.” 

Eldagsen expressed disappointment that the organization didn’t include his own statement, stating concerns that there would be an outcry from the photography community. 

There would be several back and forth between Eldagsen and the SWPA regarding setting up a panel discussion about his use of AI image generators, but nothing materialized – likely eventually leading to his refusal to accept the award. 

Eldagsen’s refusal

Eldagsen appears to have attended the April 13 award ceremony in London, but further expressing his disappointment about not being granted a discussion about his image, he wrote, “Why didn’t they talk to me at the ceremony after I went on stage? I stayed until the end and 30 minutes longer.”

Eldagsen posted his statement refusing the award, but it is unclear if he also said these words at the actual event. Here’s his statement, with typographical errors edited for clarity:

“Thank you for selecting my image and making this a historic moment, as it is the first AI generated image to win in a [prestigious] international [photography] competition. How many of you knew or suspected that it was AI generated? Something about this doesn’t feel right, does it? AI images and photography should not compete with each other in an award like this. They are different entities. 

AI is not photography. Therefore I will not accept the award. I applied as a cheeky monkey, to find out, if the [competitions] are prepared for AI images to enter. They are not. We, the photo world, need an open discussion. A discussion about what we want to consider photography and what not. Is the umbrella of photography large enough to invite AI images to enter – or would this be a mistake? With my refusal of the award I hope to speed up this debate.

He also asked for the prize to be donated to a photo contest in Ukraine.

On Eldagsen’s work, the BBC, quoted a spokesperson from the organization behind SWPA, Creo: “The creative category of the open competition welcomes various experimental approaches to image making from cyanotypes and rayographs to cutting-edge digital practices…As such, following our correspondence with Boris and the warranties he provided, we felt that his entry fulfilled the criteria for this category, and we were supportive of his participation.” 

The organization has removed Eldagsen from the competition, and “Pseudomnesia: The Electrician” is no longer available online, among the other winning pieces. Eldagsen also said it has been removed from the physical exhibition. – Rappler.com

Wiliamsport, Pa. — Factory Works Photo Lab at the Pajama Factory will be offering an introduction to black and white film darkroom photography on Tuesday nights in May.

The classes will take place May 2, 9, 16, 23, and 30 from 6-8 pm.

Instruction will cover the basics of film photography and darkroom practices, from using a camera to processing film and ultimately making a finished print. The cost is $100.

Factory Works will have cameras available for use if you don’t already have your own. The only thing you need to provide is a roll of 35mm Ilford 400 ISO film which can be purchased from Hoyer’s Photo on Washington Blvd in Williamsport. Mention you’re a student of the Photo Lab to ensure you purchase the correct film. All other materials are provided.

If you are interested in attending, email photolab@factoryworks.org to coordinate payment. Upon completion of prepayment, students will receive a coupon for 10% off a film purchase at Hoyer’s Photo.

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