Society photographer Hugo Burnand has a secret weapon when it comes to portraits of the Royal Family – jelly beans.
He used bowls of the sweets to keep William and Kate’s bridesmaids and page boys in line while photographing them with the royal couple at their wedding.
Mr Burnand has not said whether he has used the trick on any of his other subjects, however.
These include the late Queen, Baroness Thatcher, former US President Bill Clinton and artist Lucian Freud.
The father-of-four has had an enormous amount of success regardless – he is now the only portrait photographer with a Royal Warrant given by the King.
He has been capturing royal portraits for almost two decades. But he first turned down the opportunity that launched him into his career as a royal photographer – Charles’ wedding to Camilla wedding in 2005.
Mr Burnand, a society photographer for Tatler magazine, had taken a career break to take his young children to South America for six months in 2004.
Disaster struck when thieves stole the family’s money, passports and Mr Burnand’s camera equipment.
It was only when the photographer found an internet cafe to try to contact his insurers that he saw an email from Clarence House, asking him to get in touch.
Mr Burnand initially said no to the job but said he realised while trekking in the jungle that he had just turned down the chance of a lifetime – the future King’s wedding.
This change of heart changed his life and he has since photographed William and Kate’s 2011 wedding, and taken official portraits of Charles on his 60th and 70th birthdays, and of Charles and Camilla in the run-up to the Coronation.
He also photographed the Princess Royal to mark her 70th birthday, and took the official pictures for the wedding of Lady Gabriella Windsor in 2019.
Mr Burnand, 59, has said he likes his portraits to have an ‘approachable’ quality and wants viewers to feel ‘you are almost talking to the person’.
However, his method has had to accommodate for the second-by-second precision of royal events, for which Mr Burnand has to prepare rigorously.
He and his stepmother Ursy Burnand, who is also a photographer, rehearsed for William and Kate’s wedding for more than three weeks, taking over the Throne Room at Buckingham Palace.
Knowing they could not over-run by a moment, they used stopwatches and Palace staff to rehearse the group photographs as they knew they would have only 26 minutes before an RAF flypast for which the entire family had to appear on the balcony.
‘We had spares for everything and then spares for the spares,’ Mr Burnand said in an interview.
‘We did dress rehearsals with stopwatches using endless staff from Buckingham Palace to fill in as family members, so we knew we had just enough time.’
He said bowls of various sweets were on hand for the young bridesmaids and page boys, telling Tatler magazine: ‘We had bowls full of jelly beans and other sweets as rewards. Interestingly, all the jelly beans disappeared, although I’m not convinced it was only the little people who ate them.’
Born in Cannes, France, Mr Burnand was raised in Berkshire and went to Cheam School in Headley, Hampshire, the prep school attended by the King and the late Duke of Edinburgh.
He won his first photography competition at the school, aged seven, and practised his skills while at Harrow, taking portraits of school-leavers.
His mother Susan Gordon was killed in a car crash in 1964, the year after he was born, and he was raised by his father Peter and his stepmother Ursy, from whom he learned his early photography skills.
After working as a stable hand and then as an insurance broker at Lloyd’s of London, he became a professional photographer at 27 and worked as Tatler’s society photographer for its Bystander party column for more than 20 years.
He took the photos at David and Samantha Cameron’s wedding in 1996 and his other famous subjects include Spike Milligan, Victoria Beckham and Michael Jackson.
But he is best known for his images of the Royal Family, following in the footsteps of Cecil Beaton, who photographed Queen Elizabeth II after her 1953 Coronation.
Mr Burnand said he had spent weeks studying images from past coronations, including the portraits of the late Queen.
Beaton later revealed in his diaries that he had such nerves about the 1953 Coronation that he drank heavily the night before and woke up badly hung over.
When he came to the task, he feared he had the lighting wrong but realised he did not have time to change anything.
He wrote: ‘I was banging away and getting pictures at a great rate. I had only the foggiest notion of whether I was taking black and white, or colour, or giving the right exposures.’
The Associated Press was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography on Monday in recognition of 15 searing images that rendered in real-time the devastating human toll of the war in Ukraine.
The winning package included an image of emergency workers carrying a pregnant woman – who later died — through the shattered grounds of a maternity hospital in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol in the chaotic aftermath of a Russian attack.
Another showed Russia’s brutal monthlong occupation of Bucha in a chilling still-life — a dog standing next to the body of an elderly woman who has been killed.
And another captured an elderly woman kneeling in agony next to the coffin of her son in the cemetery of Mykulychi, on the outskirts of Kyiv.
While AP photographers made countless images of horrifying, haunting and heartbreaking scenes of war, they also stood witness to the profound courage of soldiers and ordinary people.
Below is a photo gallery that showcases the Pulitzer-winning work of AP photographers Evgeniy Maloletka, Emilio Morenatti, Vadim Ghirda, Rodrigo Abd, Felipe Dana, Nariman El-Mofty, Bernat Armangue.
A woman crying in front of a destroyed apartment. Bodies thrown into a mass grave. A pregnant woman on a stretcher outside of a bombed maternity hospital; she will die soon after the photo is taken.
The images from the onset of the Russian invasion of Ukraine shocked the world last spring, showing the gruesome realities of the war and sending aid surging to Ukraine. More images came as the devastation spread to cities whose names the world quickly learned — Mariupol, Kharkiv, Kyiv and Bucha — as media coverage persisted to give the world a clear picture of the onslaught.
That work has won the photography staff of The Associated Press the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News coverage “for unique and urgent images from the first weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including the devastation of Mariupol after other news organizations left, victims of Russian targeting of civilian infrastructure and the resilience of the Ukrainian people who were able to flee,” the Pulitzer Board’s citation reads.
Keep reading to see the images from the AP’s winning Pulitzer entry, including images from AP photographers Felipe Dana, Evgeniy Maloletka, Emilio Morenatti, Vadim Ghirda, Rodrigo Abd, Nariman El-Mofty and Bernat Armangue.
Warning: these images contain graphic content.
Ukrainian emergency personnel and police officers evacuate injured pregnant woman Iryna Kalinina, 32, from a maternity hospital that was damaged by a Russian airstrike in Mariupol, Ukraine, March 9, 2022. “Kill me now!” she screamed, as they struggled to save her life at another hospital even closer to the frontline. The baby was born dead, and a half-hour later, Iryna died too. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
FILE – Ukrainians crowd under a destroyed bridge as they try to flee crossing the Irpin river in the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, March 5, 2022. War has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the globe. One year on, thousands of civilians are dead, and countless buildings have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of troops have been killed or wounded on each side. Beyond Ukraine’s borders, the invasion shattered European security, redrew nations’ relations with one another and frayed a tightly woven global economy. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti, File)
FILE – Natali Sevriukova reacts next to her house following a rocket attack the city of Kyiv, Ukraine, on Feb. 25, 2022. The yearlong war in Ukraine has left tens of thousands of dead and wounded on both sides, disrupted energy and food supplies, and reduced whole cities to ruins. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti, File)
An explosion erupts from an apartment building at 110 Mytropolytska St., after a Russian army tank fired on it in Mariupol, Ukraine, Friday, March 11, 2022. On the seventh floor of the building, two elderly women Lydya and Nataliya were stuck in their apartment because they couldn’t make it down to the shelter, and were killed in the explosion. The two heavily burned bodies were buried by neighbors in front of the building. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Medical workers unsuccessfully try to save the life of Marina Yatsko’s 18-month-old son Kirill, who was fatally wounded by shelling, at a hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, Friday, March 4, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT – Lifeless bodies of men, some with their hands tied behind their backs lie on the ground in Bucha, Ukraine, Sunday, April 3, 2022. Associated Press journalists in Bucha, a small city northwest of Kyiv, saw the bodies of at least nine people in civilian clothes who appeared to have been killed at close range. At least two had their hands tied behind their backs. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
FILE – Nadiya Trubchaninova, 70, cries while holding the coffin of her son Vadym, 48, who was killed by Russian soldiers last March 30 in Bucha, during his funeral in the cemetery of Mykulychi, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, April 16, 2022. Trubchaninova hitchhiked daily from her village to the shattered town of Bucha trying to bring her son’s body home for burial. On the northwestern fringes of the Ukrainian capital, Bucha had been occupied by Russian forces for about a month, taken as they swept toward Kyiv at the start of the invasion of Ukraine that began in late February 2022. When they withdrew, they left behind scenes of horror. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd, File)
66-year-old Volodymyr, injured from a strike, sits on a chair in his damaged apartment, in Kramatorsk, Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Thursday, July 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)
FILE – A dog stands next to the body of an elderly woman killed inside a house in Bucha, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 5, 2022. Russians hunted people on lists prepared by their intelligence services and went door to door to identify potential threats. As their advance to Kyiv stalled and losses mounted, Russian troops continued to cleanse the streets of Bucha and surrounding towns with rising levels of sometimes drunken violence. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File)
A woman walks amid destroyed Russian tanks in Bucha, in the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, April 2, 2022. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
A resident wounded after a Russian attack lies inside an ambulance before being taken to a hospital in Kherson, southern Ukraine, Thursday, Nov. 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
A man runs after recovering items from a burning shop following a Russian attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Friday, March 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
Anastasia Ohrimenko, 26, is comforted by relatives and friends as she mourns the loss of her husband, Yury Styglyuk, a Ukrainian serviceman who died in combat on August 24 in Maryinka, Donetsk, during his funeral in Bucha, Ukraine, on Aug. 31, 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Bodies are placed into a mass grave on the outskirts of Mariupol, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 9, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
The Associated Press wins two Pulitzer Prizes, in public service and breaking news photography, for its work in Ukraine
NEW YORK — The Associated Press wins two Pulitzer Prizes, in public service and breaking news photography, for its work in Ukraine.
The San Francisco Chronicle has been named a finalist for two 2023 Pulitzer Prizes. The Chronicle was honored for its investigation into the crisis inside city-funded permanent supportive housing for homeless people and for its photography of the ongoing fentanyl epidemic.
The Chronicle was honored in the Investigative Reporting category for its three-part series “Broken Homes,” reported by Trisha Thadani and Joaquin Palomino, which revealed how San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s administration has failed to adequately oversee the century-old single-room-occupancy hotels, or SROs, it relies on to house the city’s most vulnerable residents.
“Joaquin and Trisha’s reporting compelled San Francisco leaders to spend millions more on housing for homeless people, prompted voters to enact a new city law and — most importantly — amplified the voices of people who had long been ignored by the powerful,” said Lisa Gartner, the Chronicle’s investigative editor. “To say this is the standard we strive for as investigative journalists is an understatement. I am so immensely proud of them.”
Staff photographers Gabrielle Lurie and Stephen Lam were named finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography for their work documenting the deadly fentanyl epidemic playing out in San Francisco. Lurie and Lam depicted the impact of the crisis on people who are addicted to fentanyl, their families and communities.
The Chronicle’s SRO investigation found that despite spending $160 million annually on permanent supportive housing, many SROs were plagued with unsafe and unsanitary conditions where residents lived in squalor and fear and deadly drug overdoses were common.
Many residents were subject to evictions for the same issues that made them eligible for supportive housing, sending them back to the streets, where potential tenants awaited acceptable placements, even as rooms sat empty.
Read “Broken Homes”:
Reporters Thadani and Palomino reported “Broken Homes” alongside photographers Stephen Lam and Scott Strazzante, who depicted the people at the center of the crisis, including those facing eviction, mourning the deaths of family members and neighbors to overdose, and activists working to aid fellow community members.
The Pulitzer Prize is among the most prestigious awards in journalism and honors the best reporting, photography, commentary and criticism. Chronicle photojournalist Gabrielle Lurie was a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer for feature photography.
“Broken Homes” was also recognized by the Investigative Reporters & Editors Awards, winning top honors for print and online journalism in the division for midsize and regional media alongside another Chronicle investigation into child deaths inside the pediatric intensive care unit at John Muir Health.
La Jolla artist Mieko Anekawa uses two cultures — the one she grew up in and the one she currently calls home — to express her emotions and establish herself in the community.
“I use a lot of colorful expressionism in my art,” said Anekawa, who paints in acrylics. “I use a lot of high-saturated neon colors.”
Anekawa’s images “try to capture the momentary and sensory effect of nature scenes,” she said, while emphasizing her emotions through bold lines and colors in response to what she sees.
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“I always loved making art,” Anekawa said. After studying art and design at Kyoto-Seika University in her native Japan, she moved to New York in 2004 and worked in graphic design, eventually transitioning into “something more physical” than sitting at a computer all day.
“I wanted to express myself more in art,” she said.
Anekawa arrived in La Jolla in 2015 and found herself inspired by its natural beauty and cultural diversity.
Her paintings evolved to integrate the Japanese art form Nihonga, which uses many brush strokes of organic inks on traditional washi paper.
“After moving to La Jolla … I tried to combine two styles: colorful expressionism and a lot of fine details [with] the dynamic composition from the Nihonga style,” she said.
The various ethnicities, jobs and lifestyles in the La Jolla community encouraged Anekawa to begin incorporating artistic styles of her native country into her work.
“Before, I didn’t really want to show [Japanese styles] because I wanted to fit in in the U.S.,” she said. “But after seeing diversity here, I actually focused on my background more.
“I felt more confident” and wanted to begin celebrating what’s “unique about myself.”
Her art also helps her connect with people, she said.
Anekawa is a member of the Spanish Village Art Center in San Diego’s Balboa Park and her work has been shown in several countries as well as New York and California.
Most recently, Anekawa was one of eight featured artists in the Mission Fed ArtWalk in San Diego’s Little Italy April 29-30.
Mieko Anekawa’s work has been shown in several countries as well as New York and California.
(Mieko Anekawa)
Such accomplishments hearten the artist, who said she tries to embolden those around her to create. She has taught art classes for adults at the Spanish Village Art Center and the Mingei International Museum of Art and has led art lessons for children at Torrey Pines Elementary School in La Jolla, which her two daughters attend.
Anekawa’s goal in teaching is to “encourage people to showcase their works, because a lot of people have a creative mind but they are too afraid to show it,” she said.
She has a goal of participating in the annual La Jolla Art & Wine Festival in October and in future years. This year’s festival is fully booked for artist booths, but Anekawa said she is working with organizers on the opportunity to lead a painting workshop.
She’s also open to other artistic endeavors, she said. “I’d like to join and help to have a stronger art community in La Jolla.”
For more information, visit miekoartworks.com or @miekoartworks on Instagram.
People in Your Neighborhood shines a spotlight on notable locals we all wish we knew more about. If you know someone you’d like us to profile, send an email to robert.vardon@lajollalight.com. ◆
These days, anyone can be a photographer with a smartphone. But what exactly makes a great photographer?
Photography is an art form that allows us to capture and preserve memories, tell stories, and express ourselves in unique and creative ways. A great photographer is someone who not only knows how to take a good photo but also has a keen eye for composition, lighting, and storytelling. Let’s discuss the 5 key attributes of a great photographer: creativity, technical skill, adaptability, attention to detail, and patience.
As simple as it may sound, a great photographer is someone who can produce great photographs on a consistent basis. So, what is a great photograph? A great photograph is one that evokes emotion, tells a story, or captures a moment in a unique and powerful way. A great photographer also knows how to take care of exposure, composition, and focus.
There are many different types of photography, each with its own unique characteristics and techniques. Some of the most popular types include portrait, landscape, product, wildlife, street, food, action, and scientific photography. No matter the type, however, photography is a form of art. As such, it’s important to note that what makes a good photograph is subjective and can be different for various people in various contexts, just as great art is defined differently by different people. Therefore, a photograph that is considered amazing by one person may not be considered as such by another person and that is okay.
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However, there are certain attributes that all photographers can foster and rely on to ensure that their photographs turn out well, not just to them but to a wider range of audience. Developing these skills takes time and practice but will pay off in the end.
There are thousands of professional photographers out there and millions more who own a camera. So what makes one stand apart from the crowd? A great photographer has a creative eye for composition, perspective, and lighting that sets them apart from others. They have the ability to see the world in a unique way and capture it in a way that is visually interesting and pleasing.
The first step in becoming more creative is believing that we are. We all possess originality within us that is within our reach but accessing and expressing creativity is a muscle that can be strengthened. The best way to do this is through practice and consistency. With time, your unique vision can manifest through your photography in a way that distinguishes your images from others.
A wildly creative photographer to take as an example is Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004), one of Magnum Photos’s co-founders. When talking about his photography, he said, for me, the camera is a sketchbook, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. It is by economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression.
A great photographer has a strong understanding of the technical aspects of photography, including manual camera settings, lighting, and post-processing. They are able to use these technical skills to create images that are well-exposed and sharp while expressing the desired mood.
The first step to consider when it comes to technical skill is mastering the exposure triangle, which includes aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. These three elements control the exposure of an image and work together to determine the amount of light that enters the camera and reaches the sensor, resulting in a properly exposed image. Simple composition techniques, such as the rule of thirds, leading lines, and framing, can also be very helpful to think about when taking a photo. When combined with the concept of the exposure triangle, composition techniques can equip you with a really solid foundation.
Another important aspect of becoming a great photographer is to become skillful in post-processing. Using platforms such as Lightroom and Photoshop allows photographers to enhance their photos and bring out their full potential. When used in conjunction with good camera skills, post-processing can be used to correct technical issues such as exposure, color balance, and sharpness, as well as to add creative elements such as contrast, saturation, and filters.
The next thing that makes a great photographer is the skill of adaptability. Adaptability is an important quality for a photographer to have because photography often involves working in a wide range of situations and environments. A great photographer should be able to adapt to different lighting conditions, weather, and unexpected events while still being able to produce great images.
For example, a photographer shooting a portrait outside on a sunny day may need to adapt to changing weather conditions, such as moving the shoot indoors or finding shade if the sun becomes too bright. A wedding photographer may need to adapt to a last-minute change in the ceremony schedule or the sudden appearance of a distracting element in the background of a photo. Adaptability also applies to being able to work with different types of subjects and clients. An adaptable and cooperative photographer is able to connect with their subjects and understand what makes them unique, and thus be able to create images that are meaningful, unique, candid, and interesting.
A great photographer pays attention to the small details in their images, making sure that everything is in focus, properly exposed, and composed.
Attention to detail is an important attribute to apply both when shooting and in the post-processing stage. While a photographer must be able to quickly notice and act upon small things like the balance of colors, lighting, and the comfort level of the subject during a shoot, they must also take the time to carefully edit their photos, making sure that the colors are accurate, the exposure is correct, and that the image is as sharp as possible.
At the end of the day, photography is a visual art form. Having the ability to pick out perfect details is an important part of distinguishing your work from those of others. To start, try capturing the small, often overlooked elements in a scene to make your photograph stand out and experiment along the way.
For example, a photographer may notice that a leaf on a tree is in the perfect position to add a pop of color to an otherwise dull landscape or that a person in the background of a portrait is making a unique facial expression that adds to the overall mood of the image. Having a keen eye for detail can ensure that the photographer does not miss these great opportunities.
Lastly, patience. A great photographer must be patient when shooting their photographs, being able to wait for the right moment to capture the perfect photo, as well as over the long term as they hone in and fine-tune their skills and craft. In a shoot, a nature photographer might need to wait for hours, or even days, to capture the perfect shot of a rare bird or animal. Likewise, a street photographer might need to wait for the right person to walk into the frame, for the right expression to appear on a person’s face, or for the clouds to provide the perfect lighting that they are waiting for. A portrait photographer, on the other hand, might need to wait until their subject is relaxed enough to be able to capture a candid expression.
In the long run, a great photographer should bank on consistency and patience. Mastering technical skills takes time and comparing one’s novice photographs to the expert photographs of another is a mistake made by one too many. Becoming a great photographer happens over time, and patience is an important part of not giving up too early.
One part of becoming a great photographer comes from studying the work of other photographers that we admire so that we can learn from their successes and mistakes. Analyzing the direction of light, the angle of the camera, and the overall mood of famous photographs is a great way to add some depth and style to your photos.
To do that, here are some photographers to learn more about: Ansel Adams, Irving Penn, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Dorothea Lange, Robert Capa, and Annie Leibovitz.
These are just a few examples of photographers who are considered to be among the greatest of all time. There are many other photographers whose work is also highly respected and whose contributions to the art of photography have been significant. Studying the composition and the nature of the work of these photographers can be an excellent way to become a great photographer yourself.
It is also important to seek feedback on your own work and be open to constructive criticism. If photography is something that you enjoy, you can network with other photographers in your area to gain inspiration and feedback from them. Networking with people in related fields, such as photo editors and art directors, can also help you to get your work seen by more people and potentially lead to new opportunities.
