Photographer Annie Leibovitz has spilled the beans on her famed 2007 photo shoot with Queen Elizabeth praising the monarch’s ‘feisty’ nature.
“She has so much energy and drive,” Leibovitz told HELLO. “And she definitely has opinions.”
Recalling her shoot Annie told HELLO the gold robe she wore for her sitting proved contentious.
“She said, ‘I don’t think I’m going to be wearing this cape thing,’” said the 66-year-old photographer.
“I mean it was a 75-pound cape that she’s walking around in, very heavy with these ceremonial robes. Oh my God, she’s feisty.”
Despite the Queen, 89, posing for more than 130 official portraits in her 63-year-regin Leibovitz, who is based in New York, was the first American invited to take a photograph of Her Majesty at Buckingham Palace.
In 2008 the 25-minute shoot became rather infamous after a BBC documentary misleadingly gave the impression that the Queen had hostilely walked out on Leibovitz – that editing led to the resignation of BBC1 controller, Peter Fincham.
During the sitting Leibovitz reportedly asked the Queen to remove her “crown” – which was actually a tiara – for a “less dressy” option but Her Royal Highness, who was adorned in a ceremonial robe, countered: “Less dressy? What do you think this is?”
The photographer thought maybe the Queen’s dry retort was a crack at humour, later writing in a 2008 issue of Vanity Fair, “I thought she was being funny. English humour. But I noticed that the dresser and everyone else who had been working with her were staying about 20 feet away from her.”
Speaking ahead of her new exhibition, WOMEN: New Portraits at Wapping Hydraulic Power Station in London Leibovitz said she found the monarch to be “a woman with a great sense of duty.”
“I mean, it’s like photographing your great-aunt or something like that,” she told HELLO.
The most recent image of Her Majesty was taken by British photographer and Paul McCartney’s daughter, Mary McCartney.
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