(CNN) — Catherine, Princess of Wales has taken responsibility and apologized for an edited official photograph that was recalled by a number of international news agencies over concerns it had been manipulated.
Kate said she was sorry for “any confusion” caused by the image, after her “experiment” with photo editing caused scrutiny for Kensington Palace and increased confusion over Kate’s extended absence from the public eye.
The Princess of Wales has apologised and accepted responsibility for an editing error that led to an official photograph of her and her three children being recalled by international picture agencies.
In a tweet posted on the Prince and Princess of Wales’s social media platforms, Catherine wrote: “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. C.”
The photograph, taken by Prince William at Windsor last week and released to the media through Kensington Palace to mark Mother’s Day, was the first of Catherine to be released after her abdominal surgery two months ago.
Though palace officials hoped it would reassure, after much online speculation and conspiracy theories over her condition and her health, it instead fuelled rumours after what appeared to be manipulation of the image.
The princess’s admission that it was her error came shortly after PA Media followed other agencies including Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters in withdrawing the photo from its picture service.
A spokesperson for the UK news agency said: “Like other news agencies, PA Media issued the handout image provided by Kensington Palace of the Princess of Wales and her children in good faith yesterday.
“We became aware of concerns about the image and we carried a report about it last night, and made clear that we were seeking urgent clarification about the image from Kensington Palace. In the absence of that clarification, we are killing the image from our picture service.”
There will have been dismay within the royal family that the photograph, which was intended to act as reassurance that Catherine was making a good recovery, had backfired.
There will also be frustration that the incident risks overshadowing the Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey on Monday, a key engagement in the royal family’s diary, and for which King Charles has prepared a pre-recorded message,
Royal sources said the princess made “minor adjustments” and that Kate and the Prince of Wales wanted to offer an informal picture of the family together for Mother’s Day.
“The Wales family spent Mother’s Day together and had a wonderful day,” the source added.
Kensington Palace came under growing pressure over the debacle with the controversy described as “damaging” to the public’s trust of the royal family.
Concerns were raised over a missing part of Princess Charlotte’s sleeve and the misaligned edge of her skirt, with other speculation including the positioning of Kate’s zip and the positioning of one of Prince Louis’s hands.
LONDON: Kate Middleton, Britain’s princess of Wales, issued an apology on social media on Monday for “any confusion” caused by an edited photograph which was issued by her office Kensington Palace on Sunday.
“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”, the Prince and Princess of Wales account posted on X.
The photo was posted on the the social media accounts of ‘The Prince and Princess of Wales’ on Sunday.
The picture, posted to mark Mother’s Day in Britain, shows the princess and her three children smiling and posing for the camera. It was posted with the caption, “Thank you for your kind wishes and continued support over the last two months. Wishing everyone a Happy Mother’s Day. C”
Several photo distributors, such as Reuters, the Associated Press, Getty, and AFP, had, however, withdrawn the picture from their platforms due to suspicions of digital “manipulation.”
Kate is not expected to resume her public duties until after Easter.
News came out on January 17 about a planned abdominal surgery when it was also told that the princess would be hospitalised for two weeks and then recover at home while clarifying that it was not cancer related.
Meanwhile, on March 5, a photo of Kate Middleton went viral on media websites where the princess was spotted in a car driven by her mother, near Windsor castle.
(With inputs from Agencies)
The conflict in the Red Sea is adding delays to art shipping for entities in the Middle East and for clients sending works between Asia and Europe.
“The current issues in the Red Sea are having a significant impact on our art logistics operations in the region,” says Thomas Schneider, the chief executive officer of Hasenkamp, a German art shipper who handles much of the logistics in the Arabian Gulf. “We are therefore increasingly using air freight rather than sea freight to maintain our high standards for the safe and timely delivery of artworks.”
Since November, Houthi rebels based in Yemen have been targeting shipping vessels travelling through the 1,200-mile-long waterway, mostly at the southern end, where the ships pass through a narrow strait between Yemen and Eritrea. A Houthi missile attack killed three seafarers on the Greek-owned, Barbados-flagged ship True Confidence last week.
The Red Sea is the main route for cargo ships sailing from Asia and the Middle East to Europe, and it is estimated that 15% of the world’s cargo passes through the sea.
The Houthis have said that their attacks are in retaliation for the war in Gaza, though they are attacking ships owned or flagged by a variety of countries, in addition to that of Israel and its allies, the US and the UK. In January, the US and its allies began a series of strikes on Yemen in response to the Red Sea attacks.
While most art shipping is concentrated between the US and Western Europe, entities in Asia and the Middle East that use the Red Sea route have had to find alternative routes and methods.
“In response to the disruption in the Red Sea, we have taken precautionary action to temporarily divert all affected sea freight to an alternate route which avoids this area,” said a spokesperson for Christie’s, which operates a route between London and Hong Kong. “We continue to monitor the situation, working with our partners and clients.”
Shipping companies and clients were reluctant to discuss the subject, but sources confirm that a number of Middle East events have been affected, including the Diriyah Biennale, for which Hasenkamp was contracted. The second iteration of Saudi Arabia’s contemporary art biennial opened outside of Riyadh on 20 February. There were delays on freight that was already en route in the Red Sea, and the shipping method had to be changed from sea to air for a number of works, with budget ramifications.
A spokesperson for the biennial said that he was unable to comment on internal logistics.
There are no reports of any works that were destroyed or harmed in the Houthi explosions.Beyond the Middle East, the effect on US and European art travel is little—largely because sea freight continues to be an unpopular route for sending work.
“The reality of the trade is that most of the time you don’t have the luxury of time to ship by ocean,” says Fritz Dietl, the chief executive officer of Dietl, the largest fine-art shippers in the US. “Or [the work] doesn’t fit into an ocean container, or the value is too high, or the items are just too sensitive to expose them to the potential environmental conditions of an ocean trip.”
Art shipping has become a vexed subject recently as environmental groups have identified air freight as one of the art world’s largest sources of carbon emissions. Victoria Siddall, a trustee of the advocacy group Gallery Climate Coalition, says sea freight can entail up to 90% fewer emissions than air freight.
The conflict’s effect on consumer goods, however, is much higher—particularly because a second pressure point has emerged in the lake of the Panama Canal, where water levels are so low that fewer ships can pass through. The disruptions to two key global crossings mean ships must take much longer routes around continents, adding days to supply chains and driving up insurance and other costs.
However, shippers say that the current worries around shipping are still far from the price rise during the Covid-19 pandemic, which was brought on by the cancellation of air travel. Most commercial passenger flights also carry cargo in their holds. The grounding of this ancillary means of shipping meant that the cost of sea freight spiked almost overnight.
And while the art trade might be insulated from the threats to sea shipping, it is still at risk from the wider market slowdown, which is noticeably reducing the amount of works being transported—by sea or by air.
In a Sardinia that blends ancient and modern, Michael Francalanci‘s photographic project, titled “The Last Healer of Sciatica,” plunges us into the mysterious and fascinating world of traditional healing. Francesco Bagattini‘s text accompanies the images, providing an in-depth look at the millennia-old practice passed down from generation to generation. In pre-war Sardinia, traditional medicine thrived, creating a collective knowledge where healers played almost magical roles. The island, now an Italian tourist destination, reveals a unique context: a historically closed region embracing modernity through tourism. Let’s delve deeper into Francalanci’s journey and the photographs documenting it.
Last autumn, Francalanci’s team spent weeks in the island’s interior, near Lake Omodeo, seeking individuals born after the war who still practice traditional healing. The focus was on those who, while fully integrated into contemporary society, continue ancient healing practices. Francesco, portrayed in the images, is a central figure in this project.
Francesco is seated in his laboratory, a stone room illuminated by a small square window. Behind him, against the wall, there’s a wooden cross and the History of Italy in comic book form. With his gaze fixed ahead, he tells us with his warm and low voice that in the 17th century, during the great pestilence that struck the island, a group of Jesuits returned from China to care for the sick. The religious brought with them seven healing practices (meighinas in Sardinian). The only one that has reached us, passed down through Francesco and his ancestors, is the treatment for sciatica.
Francesco’s healing ritual is fascinating and steeped in tradition. The practice takes place only during the waning moon, a period usually lasting for eleven days. «For each patient, Francesco gathers a wild fig branch. It is crucial that the tree is located outside the patient’s province (mandamento), in a spot where the rooster’s crow cannot be heard. To strip the branch and obtain a ribbon about a meter long, Francesco uses the same knife his grandfather used,» explains Bagattini in the project’s text. In Francalanci’s shots, the magic of these moments is captured. Images of Francesco during the practice, the fire consuming the fig knots at the end of the waning moon period, and the Sardinian landscape embracing this millennia-old tradition.
The narrative by Francalanci and Bagattini provides an intimate insight into this endangered practice. Francesco is indeed the fifth and final healer in his family, marking the end of a chapter that has endured for over a century. The family legend asserts that the practice can only be passed down for five generations, and with Francesco, the secret of the meighina against sciatica will slowly dissolve over time, bringing an end to an era of healers in Sardinia.
Courtesy Michael Francalanci
Meanwhile another royal reporter Richard Palmer said the issue had been heightened into a real controversy, saying, ‘What should have been a way of dampening down the hysteria now threatens to add fuel to the fire.’
In January, it was announced Kate Middleton had been admitted to The London Clinic for scheduled abdominal surgery.
At the time, Kensington Palace said she would require ten to fourteen days to recover in hospital and would be unlikely to return to royal duties before Easter.
An official statement from the palace acknowledged the ‘interest’ this news will garner but asked for respect and privacy during what will no doubt be a challenging time for Kate’s closest family.
In a statement, a spokesperson said, ‘The Princess of Wales appreciates the interest this statement will generate.
She hopes that the public will understand her desire to maintain as much normality for her children as possible; and her wish that her personal medical information remains private.’
As such Kensington Palace said they would only provide ‘significant new information’ on her medical progress, to retain privacy for her medical information and her children’s lives.
Public theorising reached fever-pitch last month with concern spiking as a result of Prince Williams’ notable absence from his godfather King Constantine’s memorial service in Windsor Castle.
A representative for Kate told US Weekly: ‘We were very clear from the outset that the Princess of Wales was out until after Easter and Kensington Palace would only be providing updates when something was significant.’ They added only that the ‘guidance stands.’
The somewhat formidable response followed speculation on social media that the Prince of Wales was conspicuously missing from Constantine’s service because of the Princess’ ongoing health issues. A brief update followed by a palace aide at an event at Windsor Castle, who declared that ‘The Princess of Wales continues to be doing well.’ However the scandal of the image will do little to reassure fans.
Tatler has approached Kensington Palace for comment.
The decision by major picture agencies to pull the first picture of the Princess of Wales after her abdominal surgery, over fears it has been manipulated, is “very odd”, a royal photographer has said.
The photo, taken by Prince William in Windsor, was released by the royal family to mark Mother’s Day and showed Kate Middleton smiling surrounded by her three children. A few hours later the photo was recalled by picture agencies, including the Associated Press and Reuters.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4 Today’s programme on Monday (11 March), royal photographer Ian Lloyd said “manipulation” of royal photographs was “common”, but the decision to pull it was “very rare”.
Mr Lloyd added: “Someone at Kensington Palace is not vey good at Photoshop.”
The Princess of Wales has admitted that she edited the Mother’s Day portrait that was released by Kensington Palace yesterday and apologised ‘for any confusion’ that the family photograph has caused.
The Palace had come under mounting pressure to reveal the truth behind the photo after the world’s top picture agencies – including the Press Association – ‘killed’ the image over claims it had been digitally manipulated.
The photo of the mother-of-three beaming with Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis was the first official picture released of the princess since she underwent ‘planned abdominal surgery’ in January.
A statement from the Princess of Wales 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. I hope everyone celebrating had a very happy Mother’s Day. C’
A source stressed that this was ‘an amateur, family photograph taken by the Prince of Wales’.
They said the couple wanted to offer an ‘informal’ picture of the family together for Mother’s Day and the princess made ‘minor adjustments’, as she has shared in her statement on social media. An aide added: ‘The Wales family spent Mother’s Day together and had a wonderful day.’
It comes after PA – Britain’s most respected picture agency – this morning joined AP, AFP, Reuters, Getty Images and EPA in withdrawing the photo.
The UK’s national news agency said it had been ‘seeking urgent clarification about the image from Kensington Palace’ since it was released over claims it was digitally altered.
But in a sensational development this morning, PA revealed that it had now withdrawn the image ‘in the absence of that clarification’.
A spokesperson for PA said: ‘Like other news agencies, PA Media issued the handout image provided by Kensington Palace of the Princess of Wales and her children in good faith yesterday.
‘We became aware of concerns about the image and we carried a report about it last night, and made clear that we were seeking urgent clarification about the image from Kensington Palace. In the absence of that clarification, we are killing the image from our picture service.’
PA became the sixth news or picture agency to retract the photo.
The image of Kate and her children, said by the palace to have been taken by Prince William, was posted on social media.
Without an official response from the palace, confusion around the image had fuelled online conspiracy theories about Kate which have swirled on the internet since her abdominal surgery.
Ahead of Kate making her statement, royal commentator Peter Hunt said: ‘This is damaging for the royals. They knew there would be intense interest in any picture they released of Kate.
‘Their challenge is that people will now question whether they can be trusted and believed when they next issue a health update.’
The picture shows Kate sitting in a chair with her arms around Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, who are on either side of her, with Prince George standing behind, as all four smile at the camera.
But there was speculation that edits had been made to the left sleeve of Princess Charlotte’s cardigan, and other areas of the picture also raised concerns about possible manipulation.
In the social media post, Kate thanked the public ‘for your kind wishes and continued support over the last two months’.
Within hours of the photo being shared around the world, multiple picture agencies issued a ‘kill notification’ – an industry term used to retract a photo previously handed out to publications.
Late on Sunday, the Associated Press became the first agency to ‘kill’ the photo over an ‘inconsistency in the alignment of Princess Charlotte’s left hand’.
While AP said there was no suggestion the photo was fake, it retracted it because it said on closer inspection, the source had manipulated the image in a way that did not meet the agency’s photo standards.
AP said its editorial standards state that images must be accurate and that it does not use altered or digitally manipulated images.
The agency’s news values and principles explain that minor photo editing, including cropping and toning and colour adjustments, are acceptable when necessary for clear and accurate reproduction and should maintain the authentic nature of the photograph.
Changes in density, contrast, colour and saturation levels that substantially alter the original scene are not acceptable. Backgrounds should not be digitally blurred or eliminated by burning down or by aggressive toning. The removal of ‘red eye’ from photographs is not permissible.
When AP determined the photo appeared to have been manipulated, it issued what is known as a ‘photo kill,’ an industry term that retracted the image and instructed clients to remove the photo from their systems.
‘At closer inspection it appears that the source has manipulated the image,’ the AP said in its advisory. ‘No replacement photo will be sent.’
A second agency, Reuters, also withdrew the image ‘following a post-publication review’. ‘We are reviewing the matter,’ a spokesperson said.
Reuters picture editors said part of the sleeve of Kate’s daughter’s cardigan did not line up properly, suggesting that the image had been altered.
The agency could not immediately establish how, why or by whom the alteration had been made.
AfP then followed suit by issuing a ‘mandatory kill notice’ before Getty Images became the fourth agency to retract the photograph. EPA this morning also issued the same ‘mandatory kill’.
A spokesman for AfP said: ‘It has come to light that the Handout issued by Kensington Palace today of Kate and the kids had been altered, therefore it was withdrawn from AFP systems.’
A spokesperson for Getty Images told Sky News: ‘Earlier today our picture desk identified a problematic image provided to Getty Images by Kensington Palace. We can confirm the image in question was removed from our site in accordance with our editorial policy.’
Readers on X added a community note to a post from the Prince and Princess of Wales’ account which shared the photo.
It said: ‘This photo is believed to be digitally altered and as a result many major news outlets have pulled the image from their reports.’
The photo of the princess is the first released since she was admitted to the London Clinic, the private hospital where the King underwent treatment for an enlarged prostate, for a planned operation on January 16.
Charles, 75, visited his daughter-in-law’s bedside after being admitted himself on January 26, the 11th day of Kate’s stay.
She was also visited by her husband, William.
Kate left the hospital on January 29, almost two weeks later, and returned to Adelaide Cottage in Windsor.
Details of the princess’s condition have not been disclosed but Kensington Palace previously said it was not cancer-related and that Kate wished her personal medical information to remain private.
The 42-year-old future queen was last pictured in public during a Christmas Day walk in Sandringham, Norfolk.
Kate is not expected to return to official duties until after Easter, and William, 41, temporarily stepped back from his royal role to juggle caring for her and their children as she recovered.
He returned to royal duties in February and is expected to carry out an engagement linked to his Earthshot environmental prize on Monday, as well as accompanying the Queen at events to mark Commonwealth Day.
Earlier this month the Army was forced into an embarrassing about-turn after suggesting Kate would attend Trooping the Colour on June 8.
Tickets were being sold for the event, with Kate expected to attend in her role as Colonel of the Irish Guards, the regiment which is trooping its colour this year.
However, it is understood the Army did not seek approval from Kensington Palace before publishing the page, and the website was subsequently updated to remove the reference to her.
 waits for last customers at the end of the night at her stall in New Taipei City. She has been in the industry for two years and is tired of this job but doesn’t have the energy to explore other options.)
Xiao Mei (小妹) waits for last customers at the end of the night at her stall in New Taipei City. She has been in the industry for two years and is tired of this job but doesn’t have the energy to explore other options.Photography Constanze Han
Street view of a betel nut stall. Inside, Molly prepares betel nuts while waiting for customers.
Molly is 24 years old and has been selling betel nuts for five months. She had just quit her last job when the owner of this stall, a woman she is friendly with mentioned they were short-handed and needed some help. She agreed to come work here until she figures out what she wants to do next. Her family is aware of her job and are accepting of it, but they hope she will pursue her interest to become a beauty professional doing either makeup or nails. She currently works the night shift and wakes up every day in the early afternoon and starts to get ready for work. When she has spare time, she likes to drink alone at an Izakaya nearby.Photography Constanze Han
