Key Points
- Kate Middleton had abdominal surgery in January and it had been announced that she’d take time out to recover.
- An official photograph of her was released by the British royal family on the weekend.
- News wire services stopped distributing it because of concerns it had been digitally altered.
With the hashtag #whereisKate doing the rounds on social media, Kensington Palace officials had likely hoped the release of an image of a smiling Princess of Wales would quell speculation about the royal’s well-being.
However, the photograph of Kate Middleton with her three children, Louis, George and Charlotte, which was released to the media and posted on Kate and Prince William’s official Instagram account, appears to have only further stoked discussion.
The release of the photograph came after an unusually long public absence for Princess Kate.
Princess Kate was last seen at a Christmas church service before it was announced she had undergone surgery. Source: Getty / Samir Hussein
The 42-year-old, whose husband Prince William is heir to the British throne, has been mainly at their home in Windsor, west of London, since leaving hospital on 29 January.
The picture was captioned: “Thank you for your kind wishes and continued support over the last two months. Wishing everyone a Happy Mother’s Day. C,” and was attributed to Prince William.
After publishing the photo provided by the palace, news wire services including the Associated Press (AP), Reuters and AFP decided to withdraw it.
“It has come to light that this handout photo … had been altered and therefore it was withdrawn from AFP systems,” the agency said in a note to clients.
The AP said it had retracted the image because on “closer inspection, it appeared the source had manipulated the image in a way that did not meet AP’s photo standards”.
Kensington Palace did not immediately respond the AFP news agency’s request for comment.
A closer look at the royal photo
Senior lecturer in digital media at RMIT, TJ Thompson, who has worked as a photojournalist in the past, said to those with an understanding of photo editing, it was obvious some edits had been made to the image.
“Nothing jumps out initially at a quick glance but when you start to pause and zoom in, things start to unravel,” he told SBS News.
Thompson pointed out five parts of the photo which he claimed were edited.
The most obvious he said was an “anomaly” on the cuff part of Princess Charlotte’s left sleeve, “where part of the sleeve just disappears into the ether”.
There are five areas the image was altered, according to digital media lecturer TJ Thompson. Source: Supplied
He also identified a “mismatch” on the steps behind Prince Louis’ right knee and a duplicated pattern on the right shoulder of his sweater as well as alterations to Princess Cate’s hair and fingers.
What is the issue with ‘Photoshopping’?
Thompson said society as a whole was seeing more of these kinds of edits in people’s personal photos.
“Even without necessarily asking for it, some smartphone cameras or smartphone camera apps are doing little touch-up things of people’s faces, they are smoothing skin, brightening teeth, that kind of stuff, so I think you’re seeing a lot of subtle, in-the-background edits going on,” he said.
However, Thompson said news outlets should not accept such alterations in images they distribute.
“We have a lot of faith and trust in our news organisations and politicians, we’re depending on them to live our lives and make decisions about our lives so if they are misleading or deceiving us, that’s a really big issue,” he said.
Thompson said that is why news agencies generally have restrictions around the edits on images they will accept and why the wire services took the unprecedented step of issuing a kill notice on the photo provided by the Royal Family.
“Associated Press has a very clear policy on image manipulation or image editing. For AP, you can only do very minimal edits, they say things like cropping is okay, as long as doesn’t mislead the audience, colour correction is alright, removing dust spots, but that’s about it.”
Concerning the image of the Princess specifically, he said given: “There has been lots of speculation about, her health and they’re trying to put this photo out there to allay some of those fears, but it’s kind of doing the opposite of that, and it’s inflaming fears and speculation.”
The royals and their right to privacy
Cindy McCreery, associate professor of history at the University of Sydney, said the royal family was in a “difficult position” due to what she described as “conspiracy theories” circulating about the Princess.
She said members of the public were jumping to “absurd” conclusions based on the fact she had not been spotted in public.
“If they say nothing and are consistent on the right to privacy, people just will worry and wonder, and if they try and release information that may actually backfire and actually, then sort of encourage further questions and I think that’s actually what’s happened with this photograph,” McCreery said.
She said this was “just the latest episode in a much longer and complex relationship of the royal family with the media following the News of the World hacking scandal, Princess Diana’s death and stepping down from the royal family and taking legal action against news outlets.
Photos published by gossip news outlet TMZ earlier in March showed Kate wearing sunglasses while being driven in a car, but many British media outlets chose not to publish the pictures.
With additional reporting by Agence France-Presse.
