Behind the Shot – Prince William and Kate Middleton
I was lucky enough to part of the accredited press team covering Prince William and Kate Middleton’s Royal Tour of Canada in 2011. The shot below was my favourite and most published photo of the trip. After covering various events in Ottawa, Quebec and Montreal I was invited to Prince Edward Island to photograph a dragon boat race on Dalvay Lake. Throughout the tour my strategy was to try and get a different shot than the other photographs in the press team. Instead of being huddled together in a press pack I would always try and do my own thing, shoot from the crowd or take a different angle to avoid taking the same picture from the other members of the accredited press. I remember arriving at the lake and checking out the press area; it wasn’t for me. I decided to take a risk and look for a different angle. On this occasion it paid off. My eye line for the hug was perfect unlike the majority of press. My shot was unblocked and with a long lens I was able to get the perfect angle. The highlight of the trip so far! I knew it was a great photo, I captured a moment when the couple was off guard and not worrying about protocol, a rare intimate moment like this is was you hope for. It was time for another risk, instead of carrying on with last of the event and prize giving I rushed to send the photo out. A quick call to the photo desk to let them know what I had and then the always tricky challenge of trying to get the shot out as fast as possible. I rushed to the press tent to upload the photos. The internet in the press area was very slow and kept cutting out, I knew this wasn’t going to work. The hotel at the lake had WiFi but again it was cutting out!! The main computer at the hotel had a hard line going the reception computer. After a little convincing and a promise to send the hotel shots I managed to plug in and get my shots out before the rest of press and by the time the day was over my photos had hit all the major news sites and were ready for print in all the major UK papers and others around the world. Before leaving for the trip I joked to my wife that I wanted to get a photo suitable for a stamp, I was pretty close!!! The photo later ran on the front cover of various magazines around the world.
