For the flagship of monarchies, here is a book that lives up to the task. Taschen has reissued (and updated) her book Her Majesty, a photographic history of Queen Elizabeth II of England, from 1926 to the present.
A volume of 25x34 centimeters, 368 pages and 3.23 kilos in weight, a challenge for the resistance of any home bookstore and for this publishing house specialized in books where photography is the main protagonist. The price, however, is light: 50 euros.
There are 46 prestigious photographers who illuminate fragments of her private life (private?) and her public appearances, such as the spectacular day of her coronation (June 2, 1953). Larry Burrows captures the sequined snake that hundreds of decorated soldiers draw on their way down Regent Street and Cecil Beaton captures Elizabeth II in her queen's splendor: with the cloak, scepter (holding one of the largest cut diamonds in the world) , and crown (2,868 diamonds, 17 sapphires, 11 emeralds, 5 rubies and 273 pearls), which more than justifies the title of the series, The Crown, whose fourth season is about to premiere on Netflix, with Olivia Colman in the role of the British monarch.
The book combines palace photos, studied in detail so that they look regal and opulent, with the spontaneity offered by many of the 69 images contributed by anonymous authors, who manage to capture moments where Buckingham's rigid protocol relaxes. In some of these images, few, Elizabeth II laughs out loud, oblivious to the focus of the camera, an attitude that is difficult to see in the queen, whose apparent coldness and absence in the manifestation of feelings always stands out.
Dorothy Wilding captured Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten in a romantic movie portrait of gallant Hollywood
To highlight some of the hundreds of photos, the one that Dorothy Wilding took of Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten, for their engagement in 1947, which could pass for a love movie poster of gallant Hollywood. And the family photo that the royal house took after the marriage between Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh is also striking. It seems as if the protocol had been left in suspense and the characters, dressed to the nines, with their jewels, medals and epaulets, shine much less, both due to the fact that it is in black and white, and because there are almost no characters who be ready at the moment of the 'click'.
Henri Cartier-Bresson leaves his mark. In one of his photos, he captures the popular sentiment of the British, by photographing some citizens perched on an imposing bronze lion, at the funeral of King George VI. In another, on the day of the coronation, the artist does not focus on the pageantry, but on the public waiting in the street. He turns the camera towards the back room and fixes for posterity a couple who is entertaining themselves in a bag, while behind them a business shows a window full of souvenirs commemorating the event.
Henri Cartier-Bresson captures popular sentiment by photographing citizens perched on an imposing bronze lion
Images from his trip to Ghana in 1961 offer a different image of the monarch. Also those made by two anonymous authors, who catch the monarch at an unusual moment. In one of them, the queen gets out of the car to catch a flight at Heathrow airport in an energetic gesture, jacket in hand, determined to do anything, including changing the flat tire if necessary. Or when she asks a member of the Grenadier guard to hold the typical Elizabethan bag for her. The soldier remains unskilled, but his mission is probably one of great commitment.
The photos with Diana Spencer are few (three) and in one of them, at the opening session of Parliament (1982), her face is tense. She also has a look of circumstance while she poses for the painter Lucien Freud, perhaps afraid of the final result (a daring thing to get naked for this painter). She appears with an amused expression when the singer Bryan Adams catches her in a room in Buckinham, sitting in a very unregal chair and next to some boots that are drying.
