There are, it turns out, three certainties in this life: death, taxes, and Kensington Palace’s ability to put out a perfectly timed photograph of the Princess of Wales wearing skinny jeans and surrounded by her children at their most angelic-looking. This time, said picture took the form of a “Happy Mother’s Day” post, captured by William at the Cambridges’ home in Windsor “earlier this week” according to the accompanying Buckingham Palace press release. “Thank you for your kind wishes and continued support over the last two months,” reads the caption attributed to “C”, or Catherine. “Wishing everyone a Happy Mother’s Day.”
The post comes, of course, after weeks of frequently ridiculous, borderline hysterical speculation about where, exactly, the Princess of Wales had disappeared to while recovering from abdominal surgery – despite the fact that the Palace had released a statement on 17 January explaining that she would be at home recovering in Berkshire until April, and that it would “only [be providing] updates on Her Royal Highness’ progress when there is significant new information to share”. It doubled down on that stance when the X frenzy around #katemiddletonmissing reached its peak: “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.”
Based on today’s photograph, the wildest change the Princess has made in her weeks out of the spotlight is no longer dressing her children in coordinating blue (with apologies to those who had their money on some sort of radical Kardashian-esque transformation in the office sweepstakes). Perched on a wicker chair on the patio of Adelaide Cottage, her signature blow-out in place, she’s wearing a jacket that feels Barbour-esque, and wrapping her arms around Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, while Prince George hugs her shoulders, beaming at the camera. They look, for all the world, like a family delighted that one of their own is finally on the mend after quietly recovering from major surgery in the privacy of her home. Who would have thought it?
Aretha Franklin wasn’t having it.
Matthew Jordan Smith, a veteran celebrity photographer, had arrived in Detroit for his first-ever shoot with the Queen of Soul. The illustrious singer was impressed by his body of photo work and perhaps just as much by his thoughtful touch ahead of their meeting: a bouquet of yellow roses.
But when Smith tried to set the photo studio mood by playing songs he’d carefully arranged on his iPod, Franklin’s reaction was decidedly mixed.
She was fine with the classic Motown music he picked, including tunes by her childhood friend Smokey Robinson. But as tracks by current acts such as Beyoncé and Mariah Carey popped up, her expression said it all.
“She wasn’t enjoying it,” Smith recounts. “So I asked her, ‘Well, who’s your favorite artist today?’ She said, ‘Me.’ I said, ‘No, no — your favorite new artist.’
“She stopped and looked at me: ‘Me.’”
That memorable January 2005 shoot ignited what became a long, tight working relationship between the New York-based photographer and the Detroit star, producing a repertoire of photos now assembled in Smith’s handsome coffee-table book, “Aretha Cool,” which comes out Friday (ICLA, $101.65, available at arethacool.com).
The 256-page volume, what Smith calls his “heartfelt tribute to the iconic legend,” captures Franklin during the final chapter of her storied life and career. He became her de facto official photographer during those years, shooting her for album covers, magazine spreads, publicity photos and more.
The shots in “Aretha Cool” portray the multifaceted personality she was: glamorous, self-conscious, pensive, mischievous.
After that initial Detroit shoot, Smith continued to accompany their photo sessions with music — only now the playlists were made up entirely of the Queen of Soul’s own songs. It was a successful gambit by the photog, teasing out those various shades of Franklin’s character and often prompting her to sing and dance as they worked.
Smith still has those old iPods, and he returns to them periodically.
“I can still see her expressions and remember how she was reacting to the music,” he says.
Franklin was meticulous and demanding, always particular about how she was photographed. Concepts that had been scrupulously planned would be suddenly reimagined by the singer on the spot.
“And when she was done, she was done,” Smith says. “She’s the queen. She deserved that.”
Franklin sometimes referenced other celebrity images by Smith, asking to be framed and lighted the same way. Those included his iconic Tyra Banks photo from the ’90s, but with Franklin posing in a hat following her eye-catching 2009 appearance at Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration.
“Aretha was so happy that day, in such a good mood,” Smith said of that New York shoot. “She had so much energy, which wasn’t always the case. That day is in my mind forever. She kept pointing up toward heaven, like she was praising God, all day and through the night.”
An earlier New York experience — three days in summer 2005 — also stood out, becoming the moment “when we really bonded, being together all day every day,” Smith recalls.
It started with a ride in her limousine, where the photographer found himself “dying and sweltering” inside the hot vehicle. Franklin famously avoided air conditioning while touring, seeking to protect her voice, and Smith’s sweaty reaction was like an initiation rite.
“Her bodyguards were laughing at me,” he says. “That’s when they all accepted me into the team. But that was my first and last time riding in her car.”
Gwendolyn Quinn, Franklin’s longtime publicist, had linked the two up: Quinn knew Smith as one of the most respected camera pros in Black Hollywood, a go-to cover photographer for Essence magazine and figures such as Oprah Winfrey, Halle Berry, Quincy Jones, Samuel Jackson, Queen Latifah, Angela Bassett and more.
There was a reason Smith and Franklin clicked, the publicist says.
“He never said no to her. He knew how to treat her — he always made her feel comfortable. She also loved his work,” Quinn says. “Once I introduced them, she dealt with him directly. She’d keep me apprised and let me know a shoot was happening and that new photos were coming.”
Smith was accustomed to operating in a world of artist managers, agents and other middlemen; with Franklin, the dealings were firsthand, and their phone conversations evolved into personal chats.
One call came out of the blue in the middle of the night, and for the abruptly awakened Smith, it felt like a dream. Franklin was debating her new album’s title, and she wanted his input: Should it be “A Woman In and Out of Love,” or “A Woman Falling Out of Love”? (In 2011, she opted for the latter, and it became her final album of new material.)
“Photography, if you’re doing it right, is a very intimate situation,” Smith says. “When you connect with a person, they trust you. Most of my clients are people I’ve had for decades — Tyra, Oprah, Queen Latifah. That’s personal stuff. And with Aretha it was very intimate.”
In late August 2018, Smith was there for Franklin’s final grand moment: the public viewing and funeral following her passing. That week in Detroit, he transformed from glamour shooter to photojournalist, and his evocative scenes of grieving fans and hometown tributes fill the closing pages of “Aretha Cool.”
Months earlier, during Thanksgiving week 2017, he’d been scheduled to photograph Franklin in Detroit for a forthcoming album cover. The singer promised to treat Smith to her homemade peach cake and spoke excitedly about a looming deal with Walmart for a line of food bearing her name.
“But the night before Thanksgiving, she got sick and went to the hospital,” the photographer says. “It was the last conversation I had with her.”
For “Aretha Cool” — which is also being offered in a signed, 100-copy deluxe edition — Smith put together a Spotify playlist based on the iPods he used during his Franklin photoshoots.
“I want people to feel what it’s like being in the room while she’s hearing her own music,” he says. “As you go through the book, you can play the songs at the same time. These photos are a legacy of her, but they’re also our legacy. We all have these memories based on music, and I think that’s very powerful. I didn’t want this to be just a picture book, but an experience.”
Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Aretha Franklin’s later years revealed in new book of photos
For most happy couples, their wedding day is a euphoric blur of rings, toasts, speeches and dancing before crumpling in an exhausted heap on a hotel bed.
But for the photographers capturing the occasion – those big group shots for mum’s mantlepiece or candid snaps of people drinking and dancing – it can be a VERY different story.
Last week more than 900 snappers signed an online petition calling for the conditions for wedding photographers and videographers in churches to be improved.
They accused clergymen and women of making it near-impossible to get pictures of couples on their special day because of their ‘rude, humiliating, aggressive and abusive behaviour’.
But now wedding photographers have lifted the lid further, telling MailOnline the other niggly annoyances they have to deal with from grabby drunk guests to being told to avoid picturing nuisance relatives.
And according to the snappers there is always one pesky guest and more often than not it’s the sister of the bride or groom that is most feared, rather than the mother-in-law.
The rumble from wedding photographers came as an old video resurfaced on TikTok of a priest halting proceedings and refusing to carry on until the snapper put their camera away.
The petition was set up by Rachel Roberts, a Lincolnshire based photographer, who feared that many church leaders were ‘stuck in the past’ while those who have embraced social media were left with long wedding waiting lists.
‘Ultimately, we all want the same thing which is to deliver lovely results for the couple,’ she told the Mail.
‘We live in a digital age now and couples do want loads of coverage of their gorgeous ceremonies and we can work with priests and vicars to do this without being intrusive.’
Johnny MP, 41, who has been a wedding photographer for 13 years and worked at over 400 weddings, said tensions between the clergy is ‘definitely’ something he’s experienced.
Throughout his career, vicars have told him that no photographs are allowed as the church is ‘a private room between the couple and God’ while another, upon introduction, shoved her hand in his face listing off her ‘three rules’.
The multi-award winning photographer of the year said: ‘It’s really strange because I’ve done weddings for every major faith in the world – Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Jewish, Humanist, all variants of Christianity – and none of those people have ever had a problem. It always seems to be Church of England vicars.
‘Most are fine, you need to show respect as they are in charge and I’ve had some really lovely ones, but a handful have called me out during the ceremony.
‘On one occasion I had already spoken to the vicar about where to stand but he called me out during the vows. It creates a really bad atmosphere and [the couple] probably felt a bit awkward.
‘The couple and guests took it well and just joked about it afterwards saying you’re on the naughty step but I was really embarrassed, because I am there to work and serve the couple – the same way the church makes money for doing weddings. We are all just trying to do our job.’
One female videographer, who wished to stay anonymous, said: ‘I’ve encountered a mix of experiences with clergymen while filming weddings.
‘Some have been very accommodating, allowing me to be up front and central to capture the important moments, whilst I others have made it challenging, one specifically where I was tapped on the shoulder mid ceremony and quite rudely asked to stop filming, despite being hired to do so by the couple, which i found incredibly embarrassing and disruptive to the service.
‘It seems to be a luck of the draw, with both positive and frustrating encounters, but I do think certain people like to be bossy and be in control of everything.’
Tom Dinghy, who was the photographer at Jeremy Kyle’s wedding in 2021, has also been put in some tricky situations trying to balance the couple’s wants with a stubborn clergyman or woman.
He said: ‘Those who work in churches seem to have this fear of being distracted while weddings are taking place.
‘It is the photographer’s job to capture everything and everyone without being the centre of attention – I’ve never met a photographer who wants to be looked at while they’re working.
‘We want to get all the angles and everyone’s faces which can mean being behind the vicar. This can be a point of contention because they don’t like it if you stand behind them and feel like we are invading their work space, but we are all here to do the job. It is an odd thing.’
Last week Dr Rowan Williams, who officiated the Prince and Princess of Wales’ wedding in 2011, admitted that some vicars can be ‘a complete pain’ when it comes to wedding photographers in churches.
‘While some vicars can be a complete pain and over-controlling to a degree, clergy too need to be able to do their jobs,’ he told The Times.
‘A request not to be intrusive during a service when something significant is supposed to be taking place at the spiritual level is not unreasonable.’
Outside of the church, there are other minor issues that photographers have to battle with through the day from drunken guests grabbing their clothes to family members wanting their own ‘mini photoshoot’.
Mr Dinghy, who was an events photographer for eleven years before specialising in proposals and weddings, said: ‘Normally, the couple is absolutely lovely.
‘There’s always one guest who thinks they know a great angle or tells you where they think you should go. They think they are being funny or are hobbyist photographers. But we treat them with politeness.
‘In my experience there is always a sister of the bride or sister of the groom that has something to say, while the mother of the bride is usually lovely.’
At one wedding he attended the 37-year-old photographer from south east London, managed to get a candid snap of the groom and the best man kicking back with a beer before the ceremony.
‘It was a very casual shot,’ he said. ‘But then the sister of the groom said ‘are you going to take all the family photos here because it’s not a nice backdrop’. I am polite but I am thinking leave me alone.’
Another female photographer, also based in London, spoke of the difficulties of navigating through family dynamics on the big day.
The 31-year-old said: ‘Weddings are intense and emotional days so you get a lot of weird things going on. Sometimes you get guests that pull you by your clothes to ask for a photo rather than just speaking to you they’ll grab your shirt.
‘Sometimes you get a family member who forgets it’s not their wedding, so you get pulled aside to have a mini-photoshoot with the sister-in-law.
‘Especially if they have their own families they want to get shots done because everyone looks great but it’s not about them.
‘You have to reign them back in and tell them it’s not about them – it’s about the bride.’
On other occasions photographers have been told not to picture a certain person in the family or try and cut them out of group shots of the relatives.
‘It’s awkward because sometimes you get a bride or groom telling you they don’t want pictures of a particular family member which is sometimes unavoidable,’ the unnamed photographer said.
‘Then you need to negotiate with that family member by putting them on the end of the photograph or try and get another family photo when they walk away but you can’t make it obvious.
‘I often get situations where there is a stage or an aisle and people are tapping you to move out the way saying I am blocking them which is hard to negotiate as you have to do your job.’
Some female photographers have also expressed concerns about feeling particularly vulnerable while working at weddings.
The photographer said she had been put in some odd situations during weddings and on one occasion was even offered cocaine by a groomsman.
‘Often, the parties get crazy. When I started out as a female photographer, and guests were drinking, some people would get a little overfamiliar,’ the photographer said.
‘There was a time where I was in the groomsmen’s room to take photographs but all they wanted me to do was party with them and it made things difficult.’
Mr MP added: ‘I’ve had a few drunk people. It doesn’t bother me too much. It’s much harder when people are sober and more conscious of you.’
Mr Dingley, who has photographed more than 600 proposals, added: ‘Guests do ask when drunk ‘let me take a photo of you’ but one, I don’t want you holding my really expensive camera, and two no one wants a picture of me.
‘I often joke about taking a selfie and there’s always plenty to do so I just go off to another circle.
‘But I like the guests I meet and I’ll never speak to these people again so I often have a chat with them while working and it’s nice seeing everyone have a good time.’
The photographers, many who say their career is a life-long vocation, stressed that all these small annoyances are just a small part of their day and never have a huge impact.
The photographers agree that when it comes to managing a wedding, and keeping everyone as happy as possible, it all comes down to communication.
Mr MP said: ‘Wedding ceremonies are a big day and you cannot go on and it is a very competitive industry, it’s sink or swim but I love it. The fact that you make people happy seeing couples with their photos and memories that will last forever.’
‘A lot of people think having a professional camera or smartphone will capture everything on a wedding day, but having a professional photographer who is dedicated to take photos is necessary,’ Mr Dinghy added.
‘You can’t rely on a family member or friend with a camera as you want the whole day incorporated.’
Oxford-based wedding photographer Matthew Ellacott, 50, added: ‘People have expectations at weddings. People will ask for their photos to be taken and I’ve had mothers of the bride who have strong opinions of what they would like.
‘I always feel like it is my job to please the couple and strike the tone they would like. Weddings are unpredictable and that’s part of it.
‘Alcohol is drunk and you get bumped, things get bashed or knocked over, it happens. I’ve been fortunate enough to not meet anyone who’s been too aggressive and people who are very clear in the ideas they want.’
When it comes to church weddings, it is down to the priest or vicar’s discretion on what photographs can be taken at each church and may refuse to allow them during the ceremony at all.
Others only permit one picture during the signing of the registry. The Church of England has said that it worked with professional photographers to produce guidance for couples.
A spokesperson told MailOnline previously: ‘Our clergy welcome couples and work with them to ensure that their wedding is personal, meaningful, spiritual, and beautiful. Photography is an important part of the day for many of the couples who come to church to celebrate their wedding.
‘Good early communication between the couple, the officiant and the photographer can help to ensure that expectations are aligned, and we advise that couples discuss these matters in advance with their church, so they know what to expect.
‘We want to reassure couples that they don’t have to be churchgoers to have a church wedding, they don’t need to be christened, and we welcome couples who already have children. Just ask to find out what’s possible.’
Photographer Greta Rybus Travels The World’s Hot Springs | Atmos
In her new book, Rybus documents the varied ways people relate to thermal water and the many meaningful rituals that have emerged from hot springs.
I grew up in Idaho, which (depending on how you count) has some of the most soakable hot springs in the United States. It was a part of our experience of the outdoors, taking time to let our fingers prune up after a day of hiking or skiing. Sometimes, if we saw steam on the side of the road, we’d stop and look for a human-made pool: stacking up or moving riverstones to make the right ratio of thermal and cool water. Hot springs in Idaho still retain a little touch of the Wild West, sometimes people bathe quietly—but often things get rowdy.
When I was a teenager, my parents got jobs teaching in Japan, and I learned about onsen and sento culture. How different it was from back home in Idaho! Bathing alongside neighbors or family members was routine, ritualized. People would soak before or after work, making sure to follow intricate rules of scrubbing and cleaning the body before quietly lowering into the heat. It was a quiet, reverential experience.
I studied cultural anthropology and photojournalism at the University of Montana, where I’d go with friends on weekends to wild hot springs. Afterwards, I moved to Maine where there are no natural hot springs for bathing. But, I found work as a freelance photojournalist, documenting people who live close to nature: farmers, fishermen, homesteaders, foragers, gardeners. They’ve shown me how the ways we interact with nature can shape our minds and determine how we understand the world and our place in it. I began to think about my time in hot springs and became curious about the varied ways people relate to thermal water: how we mix hot and cold water to find the right temperature for our bodies; how we build them into palaces or simple pools in the soil; how we’ve constructed culture and tradition around the feeling of warmth they provide. Hot springs can be a novel, once-in-a-lifetime experience for some, and a daily practice for others. I spent several years researching hot springs, eventually visiting dozens for my book, Hot Springs: Photos and Stories of How the World Soaks, Swims and Slows Down, published by Ten Speed Press, and released later this month on March 19.
While venturing to thermal places, I learned so much about the world. Locals taught me about Greenland’s unique approach to land ownership, where people can’t own land but can borrow it. I visited a hot spring in South Africa that is among the first instances of land reparations. I learned that Hungarian doctors often prescribe thermal treatments, noting the medical benefits of both mineral water and rest. I spent time in several of Tokyo’s municipal baths, observing how they create an important sense of community and ritual. I visited hot springs in Iceland and India and Turkey with stories of outlaws, queens, and gods.
At each bathing place, I met locals and visitors who felt similarly enthusiastic about the power of hot water. Like me, they seemed to feel that there was something deeply meaningful about the experience of being soaked in warmth. Hot springs are a clear demonstration of nature’s generosity and providence. We can simply sit in the water and do nothing but marvel at the phenomena of the planet and how it cares for us. But, most thermal springs emerge from the Earth too hot for the human body. They must be cared for, too: protected and mixed with cool, fresh water. They are a metaphor for reciprocity.
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Richard Billingham’s book Ray’s a Laugh, documenting the life of his alcoholic father and his violent mother, Liz, in the Black Country council flat in which he grew up, became a landmark in British photography after it was first published in 1996. Billingham was then 26. He had intended the candid pictures of his chaotic home, with its menagerie of pets, its sense-overloading furnishing, its unhinged scenes of domestic squalor, to be studies for paintings he planned for his art degree course at Sunderland University. Instead, having been “discovered” by a tutor, the pictures took on a life of their own. Charles Saatchi included Billingham’s pictures of Ray, shirtless and swigging from beloved plastic bottles of home brew, and Liz, a confusion of outsize dresses and tattoos and unfinished jigsaws and TV dinners, in his Sensation show. Billingham was subsequently nominated for a Turner prize.
Nearly three decades on, Billingham is publishing a new edition of Ray’s a Laugh, a “director’s cut” that is closer to his original intention, even more full of complicated affection and disgust and black comedy and overwhelming anxiety about his family life. The flashlit shock of the original is preserved but is given depth and context in a series of previously unseen images. Several, like this one, add a different note to the series: sadder, less deranged.
Billingham has never exorcised those emotions from his work. I interviewed him a couple of times about the film he made in 2018, Ray & Liz, that brought to life the world of the pictures and won a number of prizes internationally. For the first of those stories we went back to the tower block in Cradley Heath, a decade after his parents had died. He hoped then, he said, that he may be saying his last word on those formative years. This new book suggests he remains compelled to make sense of them.
Ray’s a Laugh is published by MACK
Since 2007, architectural photographer Michael Parker has shot fascinating scenes from around the globe, mostly from the seat of his bicycle. When asked about combining his two passions, he said cycling not only transformed his photography, but it also changed his view of the world.
