There was shock last night when major picture agencies started recalling a Mother’s Day photograph issued by Kensington Palace amidst claims it was manipulated. And this morning, things took another turn when the Palace tweeted a personal apology from Kate Middleton for the confusion.

“Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing. I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused. I hope everyone celebrating had a very happy Mother’s Day,” the message read. It was signed “C” for Catherine to show that it was a personal message from the Princess.

A royal source added that the image was an amateur, family photograph, that the family wanted to offer an informal picture for Mother’s Day, and that the Princess made minor adjustments. The source added that the Wales family spent Mother’s Day together and had a wonderful day.

Kensington Palace has not shared the original image.

The picture was released at 9 a.m. on Sunday, which was Mother’s Day in the UK. But throughout the day, questions were raised on social media and on the internet over whether aspects of the image had been edited.

By the evening, major picture agencies including Reuters, Associated Press, and Getty had made the picture unavailable and issued kill notifications. The agencies cited an “editorial issue” and “post-publication review” amongst the reasons. Agency Associated Press issued the most detailed description, saying that “at closer inspection it appears that the source has manipulated the image. No replacement will be sent.”

The picture of Kate in Windsor was taken by Prince William and it is the first time that Kate has been seen officially since undergoing abdominal surgery on January 16. Last week, a paparazzi picture showed her in a car alongside her mother Carole. She is not expected to resume public duties until after Easter.

Town & Country Contributing Editor Victoria Murphy has reported on the British Royal Family since 2010. She has interviewed Prince Harry and has travelled the world covering several royal tours. She is a frequent contributor to Good Morning America. Victoria authored Town & Country book The Queen: A Life in Pictures, released in 2021. 

For Peggy Nolan, the gift of a Nikon camera at 40 resulted in a breathtaking body of work, encapsulating her children’s coming of age in South Florida

March 11, 2024

After a morning of debate – and a lot of fun on social media – about a so-called ‘kill notification’ issued on a royal image by press agencies, ‘C’ (Princess Catherine, or Kate Middleton) has said: “Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing. I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused.”

Admittedly the original image is generally credited to the Prince of Wales/Kensington Palace – so in my joking headline I’d asked if we might see the Prince William at the Photography Show this weekend picking up some Photoshop tips – but I think most families understand that one person might press the shutter and another review the images and make any tweaks. 

Moreover in a united family that regularly deals with the press, it’s probably not unreasonable that images are just handed over with a standard copyright! 

Do you know, I’d be willing to be that the Royal Family of the UK might even employ people to look after their social media, too!

This response might be enough to answer most reasonable people’s level of concern about the photo (and get some sympathy from the very many of the followers who have very likely tried to tweak their own images for Instagram). It has also, of course, provided more fuel for those seeking to make fun online since they have another quote to work with. It might be a little harder this time, but there are some emerging already:

A lot of people will be asking themselves where they draw the line with their image manipulation after these events. Perhaps what is more interesting is the fact that while commenters were quick to ask “I thought William took the photo?” it’s considered not even something to comment on that the subject of the image is taking it in this day and age. 

Does that make it a selfie (at least when it comes to discussion of editing, if not copyright, as mentioned)? Do the family consider themselves part of a photo processing team which just had a bad day? These are the reasons I can think of for phrasing the apology in the first person.

As such, if you set aside the royal conspiracy theories (I know, it’s hard to do for some), does this tell us more about how little we need to emphasise the ‘self’ aspect of ‘self-portrait’ any more. It is known, after all, that Catherine is the ‘keen photographer’ in the family, so, copyright notes aside, it seems more likely the image was hers. There was a time, though, where that composition would have been more noted – pre-social media era.

In the weeks that followed Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, forcing millions to flee the country carrying their bare essentials through the snow, photographer Polly Braden flew to Moldova, on the south-west border. She spent her time there building relationships with people, asking if they wanted to be part of something long-term. “I am more interested in telling one story for a long time than a lot of stories quickly,” she says.

Braden’s previous project, Holding the Baby, had been about single parents. When the Ukrainian refugee crisis hit, says Braden, “as a single parent [myself], I was seeing all these women essentially become single parents, but also carrying grandparents, maybe a niece or other children, too. I imagined the enormity of what that was going to mean, having to get their kids to school, find work and homes, negotiate local bureaucracy – that takes single parenting to a whole other level.”

The resulting exhibition at the Foundling Museum in London documents the lives of several of these women and children over a tumultuous two years, as they became increasingly scattered across Europe.

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Lena, 21, was a law graduate from Mykolaiv, a city in the south-west of Ukraine, and part of a group of 16 sharing a room that included three grandparents and her mum. “She had trained to be a lawyer,” says Braden, “and suddenly, all she had to do was scroll through the news. She had a lot of guilt about having to leave, when all her male friends had to stay.”

After a few months, Moldova started to feel dangerous so Lena and her mother – a sign-language interpreter on the news in Ukraine – decided to move on. Her mother wanted to go to Italy, where she had some contacts. Lena, who was fluent in English, went to stay with Braden under the Homes for Ukraine scheme. She got a job at a law firm, and there’s a photograph of her around that time sitting pensively on the bus, caught in a sliver of sunlight. “I feel like I’m in Sex and the City,” she told Braden. But her situation was too complex to be a fairytale ending. “She felt so much pressure to succeed because she had all this opportunity,” says Braden. Her mother is now back in Ukraine, doing her old job.

Another compelling story centres on three 15-year-old girls – Sofiia, Aliesia and Yuliia – who had been at the same school in Mykolaiv. All across Europe, Ukrainian schools offered online learning. “They were working in different time zones,” says Braden. “Teachers might also have been abroad with their kids, or in Ukraine and when the bomb sirens were going off, they would have to go down to the basement, trying to stay online.”

Braden captures the girls daydreaming, looking at their phones, and a room in Krakow full of bunk beds with a kitchenette at the end. This was where Aliesia had ended up after a protracted overland journey to Spain, staying in refugee camps along the way. But the plan to stay with a relative there didn’t work out so they returned to Krakow. In Krakow, her mother and aunt got cleaning jobs in a hotel but after their permitted 90 rent-free days ran out, they couldn’t afford to pay for the room. They went back to Mykolaiv where Aliesia finished school last July and is now at a Kyiv university, although she can’t physically be there because the dormitories are full of displaced people.

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Her friend Sofiia started out in Poland and went to school there for four months. “Her mum was earning money at a factory, working nights, [to support] two kids from their village, a niece, Sofiia and a grandmother,” says Braden. “She got bad problems with her legs and her breathing. She had a cousin in Switzerland, and decided to drive there and start again.” Six months later, Sofiia was still doing online learning, which was taking its toll. “She is very gregarious, usually forms big friendship groups and she got really depressed,” says Braden. Despite this, she learned German and got into a gymnasium – “one of the top Swiss schools.”

Yuliia, the third girl in the group, started off in Bulgaria with her mum and grandparents. They stayed with some friends but her paternal grandfather didn’t have a passport which meant that after 90 days, they had to leave. They went to Warsaw, where Yuliia continued with online learning. “She told me she used to go and cry in the bathroom, and that she didn’t know how to make friends any more,” says Braden. Yuliia is now enrolled in film studies at the University of Warsaw, where she has made new friends.

Last summer, the three girls reunited in Ukraine for prom. “They got dressed up in prom dresses and recorded themselves, and that’s going to be part of a film in the show that will bring them to life and let them speak for themselves.” Braden has two teenage children herself and says the real joy of working with this age group is that even when “they have complex emotions, and massive things happening, they’re still teenagers and they want to talk about boyfriends, they want friendships, they want touch and they need all the things that young people need. They live in the present.”

• Leaving Ukraine is at the Foundling Museum in London from 15 March to 1 September

Editor’s note: An untold number of unheralded artists live in Colorado, those creators who can’t (or don’t want to) get into galleries and rely on word of mouth, luck or social media to make a living. You’ve likely seen them on Instagram, at festivals or at small-town art fairs. This occasional series, Through the Lens, will introduce you to some of these artists.

Capturing the grace and power of a dancer in full expression has become a passion for ballet dancer and photographer Francisco Estévez.

He’s also a two-time cancer survivor, but doesn’t want to focus too much on that. He’d rather talk about his craft.

Renowned for his physical prowess and his ability to execute high jumps, Estevez has had many solo roles throughout his career, including some in Colorado Ballet’s most popular productions: the Tin Man in “The Wizard of Oz,” the Prince and the Sugarplum Cavalier in “The Nutcracker” and, in his first role as principal, as Basilio in “Don Quixote.”

Ecuador native Estévez, now 35, trained at the prestigious School of American Ballet in New York and worked as a dancer with both the Barcelona and Boston ballet companies before joining Colorado Ballet in 2013, around the time he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. He was promoted to soloist in 2015 and became a principal dancer in 2019, soon after doctors discovered chronic myeloid leukemia, a rare form of blood cancer.

While he is still dancing, Estévez has recently been putting more of his creative energy toward photography. He skillfully captures mesmerizing leaps and mind-bending poses of dancers into a single frame, often incorporating elements of smoke dust, and body paint to enhance his imagery.

“I am inspired by creating something new and beautiful every day,” he says. “Having integral knowledge of the dance as a subject separated from the human subject is invaluable for dance photography.”

We invited Estévez to talk about his life and work. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

Q: Describe your career as a ballet dancer.

A: I started as a young boy in Louisville, Ky., with the University of Louisville Dance Academy and the Louisville Ballet School. At 16, I moved to the School of American Ballet (SAB) in New York City and finished high school there. I was able to perform featured roles with the New York City Ballet and graduated in 2008. After leaving SAB, I danced for a few years with the Boston Ballet and then a few more at the Barcelona Ballet. I met my wife, Tracy, there and we moved to the U.S. (in 2013) to both join Colorado Ballet, where I danced for nearly a decade and was a principal dancer. I took a step back from company life after the pandemic in 2021. This coincided with the birth of our son, and I began to put all my energy into my photography. I now still dance (for the time being) but as a freelance artist.

Q: What inspired you to go into photography? 

A: Since I was a young boy, I always loved photography. On family trips, I would monopolize the disposable film cameras and take too many artsy photos of an airplane wing, in addition to many others.

In Spain, many of the dancers also liked photography, so it was a natural transition for me to put my interest in photography into my passion for dance. I bought my first DSLR (digital single-lens reflex camera) and taught myself all there was about photography. As I became more ambitious in what I wanted to photograph, I did more research and learned how to do it. My entire photography skillset is self-taught, and my dance photography methodology is developed from merging our dance background with traditional photography techniques.

Q: You have become known for your ability to capture dancers at the peak of their jumps and in motion. How do you accomplish this?

A: Having integral knowledge of the dance as a subject separate from the human subject is invaluable for dance photography. While posing can be taught, there is vast knowledge that you gain from knowing the poses first-hand.

My methodology also takes into account that a three-dimensional object has to be manipulated in certain ways to be represented faithfully in two dimensions, so we have honed in certain techniques in order to help dancers feel and look their best in front of our cameras.

Q: What inspires you?

A: Creating something new and beautiful. I think as dancers we love routine but also love creating new things. Creativity lives in our routines as dancers and though we may come in every day to dance and train we do things differently within that daily structure. Finding new creative ventures in our photography is what inspires me.

Q: You have had some ups and downs in terms of personal challenges, among them two cancer diagnoses in 2013 and  2018. Do you feel comfortable sharing this with us?

A: Everyone has ups and downs. My biggest challenge was managing my cancer diagnoses as a professional athlete and artist. Surgery for my first cancer (testicular) took me out of dancing for some months and then had lingering physical effects on my dancing for years afterward. My second diagnosis of blood cancer in 2018 came as a shock; treatment for that just ended a year ago this January. I thankfully had a positive reaction to that treatment as well and continue to be healthy and am grateful for the support the dance community offered me and my family through these trying times.

This form of leukemia was thankfully treatable through a targeted chemotherapy drug and did not have nearly the destructive side effects of traditional chemotherapy. That would have taken me out of the profession completely.

Q: Do you still dance?

A: I do! But only small freelance gigs and a lot during Nutcracker season. I probably dance more Nutcrackers now than when I was in a company.

Q: How would you describe your photography?  Describe what kind of artist/photographer you are.

A: My work tries to capture mesmerizing images, blending color, movement and message in every still shot.

Q: Briefly, explain your process and your evolution to where you are now as an artist.

A: I typically start with a general lighting concept that can often change as I move through the session (if it is a creative session). Then I touch base with our dancer(s) and make a reference book of poses that are baselines for where I start the images. After the shoot, we then do extensive retouching on the background and fix lighting and any posing issues that are easy to adjust before delivering to the client.

Q: What does your schedule look like?

A: I work all the time except when we are with our son in the evenings and weekends. Ballet is a very restrictive and consuming career – often to a fault. When my wife and I stepped away, we made a conscious effort to always put our family first.

That often means that I have a pretty regular 9-to-5 schedule, but have a team of photographers that helps supplement a full schedule. I also often work late after our son is asleep.

Q: Do you remember the first photo you got paid for?

A: Likely an audition dance photo shoot in 2013 when I first moved to Denver.

Q: What is the price range (or average price) for your work?

A: We do not sell a lot of physical products but our photoshoots range from $99 to $3,500.

Q: Do you have a favorite art piece? 

A: One of the photos of my wife from our series titled “Shadows and Dust”

Q: What memorable responses have you had to your work?

A: The most memorable one was when a person came in and wanted to purchase my work to be put up in their home. That was pretty special.

Q: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

A: “Always ask; the worst thing people can say is ‘no’” (from my wife).

Q: What advice would you offer to beginning artists?

A: Be creative but also pragmatic. Never go into it with a romantic idea of what you want it to be. Make it what you want it to be by working through the practical side of things as a business as well.

Q: Describe your dream project.

A: Doing large marketing shoots for professional dance companies every year.

Q: Where can we see your art (photos)?

A: Website: franciscoestevezphotography.com | Instagram: @candidlycreated