See what I did there? 😉 You will! I love a good story about electronic files being manipulated! And so does Harper’s Bazaar, especially when it involves the Royal Family!
The title of yesterday’s article from Harper’s Bazaar (The Metadata on Kate Middleton’s Family Photo Confirms What We Already Know, written by Chelsey Sanchez and available here) even begins with “The Metadata”! We haven’t had this much mainstream discussion of metadata since the Depp-Heard Trial!
In case you’re living under a rock and haven’t heard the story, this weekend, the Princess of Wales Kate Middleton made her first public statement since her abdominal surgery in January and shared what appeared to a lovely new photo in celebration of Mother’s Day in the UK. Supposedly, it was the first official look at Kate since the surgery. The palace released the portrait on March 10 and announced that Prince William had captured the shot last week.
However, it became apparent that the photo was heavily edited – so much so that news agencies worldwide — including the Associated Press, Getty Images, Reuters and the AFP — removed the photos from their press libraries, citing concerns about manipulation. In particular, AP issued a “kill notification” for anyone using the photo, writing in an alert to journalists that after “closer inspection it appears that the source has manipulated the image. No replacement photo will be sent.”
On Monday, Kate admitted making the edits in a published apology attributed to her, stating: “Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing. I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused.”
Analyses from the BBC and Sky News help paint a picture of the lead-up to the photo controversy, confirming the image had undergone multiple edits before being disseminated by the palace.
BBC Verify found that the portrait was taken with a Canon camera, and that it was subsequently saved twice in Adobe Photoshop on an Apple Mac computer. The first version was saved on March 8 at 21:54 GMT (or 5:54 p.m. ET), and the second version was saved the following day at 9:39 GMT (or 5:39 a.m. ET).
In addition to corroborating these findings, the Sky News data and forensics team’s analysis also found that the photo was shot at Adelaide Cottage—where the Wales family resides in Windsor, west of London—with a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV camera with a Canon 50mm lens.
While both analyses confirmed the photo had been edited in Photoshop, neither yielded a date when the photo was actually taken (which might be important to know given the lack of information that has been provided by the Royal Family about Kate’s surgery and lack of pictures of her since).
Regardless, the Daily Mail identified as many as 16 potential issues with the photo, which are illustrated in the picture above (bigger and clearer picture in the article). As that article notes, some believe the Princess of Wales used an AI tool such as ‘Best Take’ found on a top of the range £1,059 Google Pixel 8 phone, which merges a burst of pictures into one perfected image to ensure all those in the images are smiling and have their eyes open, for example (which almost never happens when you actually take a family picture – I know!). But this can lead to blurred lines and glitches in final images.
A palace source subsequently told Harper’s Bazaar, “This was an amateur, family photograph taken by the Prince of Wales. [William and Kate] wanted to offer an informal picture of the family together for [Britain’s] Mother’s Day.”
It may have been Mother’s Day in Britain on Sunday, but it has been “forensic expert’s day” every day since – thanks to the photo released by the Royal Family. Metadata can be a royal pain – even for the Royals themselves!
So, what do you think? Do you think there is an innocent explanation for the photo manipulation, or something more deceptive? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.
Image Copyright © Daily Mail
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