 Leibovitz thinks it might the Queen's last photo sitting.
October 23, 2008 1:06 PM
By Mike Collett-White
LONDON - US photographer Annie Leibovitz said Queen Elizabeth seemed "a little perturbed" during a 2007 photo shoot at the centre of a British broadcasting scandal.
Leibovitz said the Queen appeared out of sorts as she arrived for a scheduled 25-minute session. The four resulting portraits of the Queen in her full royal regalia are on display at "Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life, 1990-2005".
"She looked a little perturbed and I knew something was up," said Leibovitz, best known for her celebrity photographs. "She said 'I don't have much time, I don't have much time'. I thought, 'Oh my goodness, is this going to be five minutes?'"
The head of the British state broadcaster's television flagship BBC One resigned last year after he was faulted for presenting footage from a documentary showing the Queen apparently storming out of the shoot at Buckingham Palace.
In fact, the footage was of the monarch walking into the room which had been edited out of sequence.
The BBC apologised to the Queen, but blamed production company RDF for supplying the footage edited out of sequence.
Leibovitz said she had agreed to have the photo shoot filmed for a documentary, although the camera crew only managed to get the monarch entering and leaving the session.
"...which is what they got, only they got it a little confused," she told reporters at the launch of her photographic exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
"The thing the BBC missed completely was that she was storming into the shoot."
In the end the monarch was affable and professional during
the shoot, Leibovitz said, and added that she thought it
might be the last time the Queen posed for such photographs.
"I think that's probably the last time she gets dressed up in
her clothing for a photo. I think she thinks it's a waste of time."
|
