HRH 80th birthday portait
 

Did you see that portrait photo by Snowden, what did you think?
I think they should have asked me to do it :D

I would put it in the "quite nice" category, but nothing special and nothing that many of us could not have taken - I'm sure your fees would have been a lot less Stephen :D or do you think he did it for free as its family?

For anyone who has not seen it http://www.royal.gov.uk/files/images...y download.jpg

Actually it looks a bit of a forced smile I think. Rather as if she had to hold it for a long time - not exactly natural.

What I think isn't very important 'cos I'm just an everyday common-or-garden pleb. However, I can be a rather gobby little old pleb when I choose to so here goes with the gob. :D

I must say she looks really fit and great considering she's 80! Her 'wig' looks as though she may have inherited it from Mozart but she wears it rather well so good for her - at least it's tidier than mine.

I think Snowdon could've done a much better job with the lights so that there weren't so many harsh shadows in and around her face, hair and clothing. He should also have asked her, tactfully of course, to choose a plain neckline if she wanted to wear pearls - so that there wasn't such a clutter around her neck. One of her earring is lost in the shadows too but hey, she's the boss and he's just the family snapper ex-brother-in-law.

He's obviously fond of her as it comes across as a happy family Birthday portrait that could've been a prezzie from the extended family. Y'know the sort of thing - family has a whip-round and arranges for a much-loved grannie to have some nice portraits done down at the local studio.

As for asking you to do the shots ..... well you'll just have to do a bit more grovelling next time yer in London, Stephen. Take that fella with the belted mac too - he does some canny good mugshots so you could have a shoot-out between the two of you and let an online poll (or even an online 'Pol') decide on the winning shot. Just giz a shout if you need a mobile soup kitchen because you'll be needing something more substantial than a tepid cuppa tea and a couple of cucumber sarnies with no crusts.. with corgis snapping at yer ankles and begging for titbits.

Just my two penn'orth for what it's worth.

Pol

LOL Pol well said ;) Im not sure im looking at the right portrait but the one I see looks somewhat flat and uninteresting. Certainly not something you would expect from a proffessional of Snowdons calibre. I prefer the portrait done by rolf harris as a 80th birthday gift though it does rather look like she hasnt put her teeth in properly :eek: :D

Well worth it Pol, good value for money I'd say :D
For those that don't understand what she's blathering on about, there's a certain amount of historical leg pulling going on :)

I hadn't really noticed that but yer right! :D

There's another thing maybe Snowdon doesn't know about - he could get rid of all her wrinkles with some judicious use of 'Neat Image'. Mind you, it would be cheating if he tweaked her too much and turned her into one of those awful 'porcelain' dolly-bird model types, don't you agree?

I 'neat Imaged' one of my own self portraits and it was a lot cheaper and less painful than a proper face-lift.

Pol

Just leave the envelope in the usual place ... LOL

Seriously though -- I suspect the Queen probably chose the portrait herself because it was one of her favourites from a batch Snowdon had shot. I'd have thought he might have set things up slightly better to avoid even showing shots with all those shadows though. :(

If you had been asked to do the portrait what would you have done differently?

Pol

Well for me the light source is too hard in the first place, I wonder what he used. I would certainly be thinking about introducing some fill in from the left, perhaps onl a reflector, I question whether this has had any. Using shadow highlights in CS2 its pssible to improve a good deal on what you see here though :D

Please forgive my ignorance - I'm American...but is that the Queen of England?
She looks great for being 80! :) If I were called on to take portraits of the Queen I'd probably be so nervous I'd forget all my good sense and get flogged for underexposing the whole roll or something! :D