Did Princess Di take pics of her fam?

The most photographed woman in the world, while she still lived and breathed, was Princess Diana.  If you were alive back in the 80’s and 90’s, you surely saw pictures of Diana and her children everywhere.  It occurred to me recently to wonder if Diana ever had her own camera.  Sure, it would seem redundant somehow for the most photographed woman in the world to have her own camera. But still. It matters who takes the photos and who fashions a collection of them.  I’m shuffling through a collection of my own and it’s a bit of a walk on the wild side.  I pondered whether Diana may have taken candid photos of her children.  Might she have even taken selfies with them?  Further, might the children have taken pictures of Diana, too?

Diana was known to have her own favorite photographer, Arthur Edwards, who took photos of her family to share out in the world.  We’ve all probably seen the photos.  They’re lovely.  But I’m more interested in photos she may have taken with her own camera, if she had one, in the privacy of her family life.  She must have had some modicum of a private family life, however infiltrated by household staff.  I’m curious about what her photo collection might actually have meant to her, if she did indeed have one.  

Why in bloody hell does this matter to ME, an American pleb? 

Lately I’ve been on a mission to cull through twenty years worth of my own photo collection beginning with the birth of my son in 1986 and ending when I finally acquired a digital camera in 2006.  I loved that 35 mm camera and loved the photos developed from film.  “Loved” isn’t strong enough a word to describe how I’ve felt about those photos over the course of nearly forty years.  

My son and I both have dozens of photos taken by professionals that are of superior quality to those we took ourselves.  But I look at them and toss them aside.  To be honest, I wouldn’t care if a flood came and took them away.  The pictures we took of ourselves, by contrast, are so near and dear to my heart that I have spent hours and hours scanning them, labeling them, and sorting them.  It’s truly a labor of love and I would not think to pay someone else to do it for me.  Touching the photos, handling them as they go in and out of photo albums and envelopes, all the fuss over the images of my dear son are near to what it was like holding my baby and later seeing him run around, splash in the water, climb a tree, step onto the school bus, and drive off in my car.

All this brings me back to Princess Diana.  Did she dare take her own photos?  Or did she worry they might fall into the wrong hands?  Might her sons have a collection of photos locked in a safe to keep them, well, safe?  We all know she did not survive the 1990’s.  Beyond the tragedy of a life cut short, there is the tragedy of missing out on the opportunity to look back at the unscripted moments in your life.  

You may say, “But her life is recorded ad infinitum!”  Doesn’t matter.  Other people’s pictures of your children aren’t the same.  You weren’t really “there.”  You weren’t the one focusing the lens.  You weren’t composing.  You were passively observing, if you were there at all.  

Every once in a while I come across a photo someone gave me of my son and it doesn’t hit the same.  The child in photos taken by others isn’t the same as the child whose candids I snapped myself.  I’m only beginning to decipher why this is.  My photo collection has taken on a life of its own, with stories of its own to tell.  How did this collection come to be?  

First of all, reaching for the camera back in those days was a ritual undertaken by mysterious forces.  It wasn’t like today when the iPhone is in our hands all day and we click, click, click every five minutes.  Back then, the camera came out sparingly.  Not every day, not every week, and not even every month.  When was the last time any of us went a month without taking a photo?  Think about it. 

If the camera only came out once in a while, what impulse determined whether I would reach for the camera case?  Everyone is different, but our 35 mm camera was mostly for fooling around.  Sure, we captured my son blowing out the candles on his birthday cake.  And we do have some group photos when family or friends posed together.  But those types of photos are nothing compared to the gobs of shots taken as “play.” We mugged for the camera.  Or we simply smiled our innocent smiles.  Often the photos show merely a plaintive gaze or an unconscious moment going about daily life.  

When I open my photo albums today, I’m often overwhelmed by a somewhat unholy wave of nostalgia. It doesn’t always feel good at first.  I’m struck by the gulf of time between then and now.  Though the gut punch of the first glance passes fairly soon, it leaves a bit of a mark.  Still, browsing the photos I’ve collected reminds me of the luck I’ve had in life.

Upon my first glance at my newborn son, a feeling overcame me that may be akin to the feeling of winning the lottery.  How had this gorgeous blob of “baby flesh containing a soul” come into my possession?  You read that right: This child was my possession.  Not that I didn’t consider him an awesome responsibility 99% of the time.  But I also felt like the keys to happiness had been born to me and me alone.  And boy did I feel lucky.  I felt that feeling over and over again, day after day after day.  

From the beginning, I wanted to record random precious moments to look back fondly upon later.  Weeks or months later.  And then years later.  And then decades later.  Every moment was precious, but I somehow restrained myself from snapping photos the way I do today with my grandchildren.  The film had to be developed after all.  Taking the camera out of its case was an act of participating in my own life in a certain special way.  I would look at him, appreciate his beauty, feel the luckiness of having him in my life, and want to hang on to the moment.

Going through my photo collection, I’m struck by the gaps of not only weeks but months in which I failed to take any photos.  Life interfered.  I suppose I just got busy and forgot.  We didn’t have the social media platforms to share photos with family and friends.  I didn’t see other peoples’ photos every day and remember that I could snap photos of my own to share back.  We were just living is all.

Similarly, I have barely any photos of my son and I doing things that, decades later, we routinely record on our cell phones.  For instance, people take lots of pictures in the car, in restaurants, on the ski slopes, even shopping.  I have only a couple of those from my son’s childhood.  The camera was at home in a canvas case, zipped up safe and sound.  Most of my photo collection consists of candid shots around the house or in the yard.  Weirdly, those are some of my favorites.  Did Diana take any like that?

Of course, I took plenty of pictures on vacations and to any trip involving a body of water, whether on a boat, on a riverside, on an island, or on the beach.  I brought the camera to friends’ houses and to birthday parties, naturally.  There are also lots of pictures of hikes on trails.  The camera case was always packed along with water and snacks.  Lots of mountain tops populate the photo albums.  Those were great days.  I’m not a princess, but I’d say I’ve lived a royal life.  

The paparazzi never hounded me.  My intimate moments were thankfully not splashed on the cover of tabloids.  If my luck holds out, my death won’t be recorded either.  I hope to go on in obscurity as a humble mom who loved her kid and snapped a bunch of shots of their simple life of love and silly smiles.  My son has his own kids now and I view their lives via my phone via the apps via the tech platforms that plague my existence even as I log on to catch the latest glimpses of their family life.  

It ain’t the same as my bloody crates of photo albums, though.  I wonder if Diana would agree.

Post script:

An astute reader of my Substack newsletter informed me that a documentary about Princess Di by the BBC answers my query. Diana’s son are shown looking through her photo album discussing their memories. A few photos are shared on screen.

Diana, Our Mother, Her Life and Legacy can be found on You Tube.

My Substack is currently titled my name, Cynthia Day. Later, that may change.

My handle is @15photos.