The Princess of Wales’ Photo and Her Mother Annihilation: An Intriguing Message to Kensington Palace and Other Service Providers
The Princess of Wales’ photo was released by the palace. The picture was shared to the royal couple’s account and shows Middleton and her three children. Purportedly taken by her husband Prince William in Windsor, the photo was widely distributed by wire services like the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, Reuters, and Getty Images. Agencies that later apologized and warned clients not to use the image under any circumstances.
The photo was released on the U.K.’s Mother’s Day, showing Kate (Princess Catherine) seated in a chair, sharing a hug with her children: Princess Charlotte, Prince Louis and Prince George. Prince William was credited with taking the picture by Kate.
The image seemed to suggest that the princess was doing well and that she was happy after almost vanishing from the public eye. Kensington Palace had shared scant details about Kate, 42, saying that after having “successful” abdominal surgery in January, she spent nearly two weeks in the hospital.
Edited Family Photo: What to Know About the ‘Confusion’ Over Kate Middleton’s Previously Depicted Image?
But then the questions arose, growing from rumor to full retraction. In its discussion of the photo, the AP noted that its standards prohibit substantial editing of an image, as well as the removal of “red eye” effects.
Kate will attend a Christmas morning church service in Norfolk with the rest of the royal family. It’s the last time she’s seen in an official capacity until the controversial family portrait emerges on March 10.
Hours later, Buckingham Palace announces King Charles III, 75, will have a “corrective procedure” for an enlarged prostate gland, a condition it describes as benign. Charles is leaving on January 29.
On Feb. 18, Prince William attends high-profile events without Kate, including the black-tie British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA) ceremony, where he’s seen walking the red carpet alone.
Prince William withdrew from the memorial service because of a personal matter. William had been due to deliver a reading at the service for one of his godfathers, the late King Constantine of Greece, but less than an hour before the memorial was scheduled to start, it was announced that the prince would not be present. Prince William could not attend due to a reason but the Princess of Wales was still doing well, according to the palace.
Source: What to know about the ‘confusion’ over Kate Middleton’s edited family photo
Why Princess Kate Middleton isn’t published in the U.K. The Daily Mail does not publish a picture of Princess Kate after her surgery
The first pictures of Princess Kate after her surgery would be published on websites in the U.S. The woman in the photos is wearing sunglasses in the SUV being driven by Kate’s mother. The Daily Mail says that Kate’s picture were not published in the U.K. due to the requests for her to recuperate in private.
The British Army removes from its website an announcement saying that the Princess of Wales would appear at a military parade in June. A photo of Kate was displayed with tickets for the event. The palace never confirmed her schedule.
As of Monday morning in the US, the original Instagram post remains up. “Thank you for your kind wishes and continued support over the last two months,” the caption reads. “Wishing everyone a Happy Mother’s Day. C.” (Mother’s Day is March 10 in the UK.)
It comes from the fact that wire services have established relationships with the organization that submits images to them, like the United Nations or NASA, for example. AP is not accepting and disseminating images from randos like you and me. The palace knows the editorial rules around what kind of material agencies will accept, making what they did even more brazen and a serious breach of protocol.
Kate Middleton has a photo editing job seen around the world that is more than just a way to sell tabloids and conspiracy theories. It’s also the most instructive illustration of the AI-flecked new reality we live in, a maelstrom formed when distrust and established processes converge and create chaos.
On TikTok, Twitter, or other platforms, people are free to post whatever they like, no established editorial standards necessary. In the age of generative AI tools — not to mention editing programs like Photoshop that have been around for years — “reality” is tenuous. Some people see Middleton’s poorly photoshopped family picture and decide she’s either in critical condition, in the midst of a divorce, or recovering from a BBL; others comment underneath telling her to “ignore the negativity” and that she’s done nothing wrong. When photos can be tweaked in an instant with plausible deniability, they can be anything the viewer wants them to be.
The photo was seen by fans as the royal family’s way to signal Middleton is doing well after undergoing “planned abdominal surgery” in January; before this, she had been missing from public appearances for months, fueling tin foil hat theories that something was wrong.
A lot of speculation has centered on why the royal family did this and what they’re hiding (which, to be crystal clear, could be absolutely nothing). What’s more interesting to me are the structures in place for Middleton and her family to shape their public image and what happens when that all comes crashing down.
The Wild West: Kill Notices from the Getty Images Network, and Influence from Instagram (How I Found a Red Alert in the News for WIRED)
Kill notices are very rare and unusual. The wire service source I spoke with said they could count on one hand kills issued in a year. To give you a sense of scale, AP says it publishes thousands of stories a day and a million pictures a year. There are 160,000 events a year covered by Getty Images. This is a big deal that a large kill notice has happened.
Wire services have clear rules about what’s acceptable and what’s not — AP allows minor cropping and color adjustments but disallows the removal of “red eye,” for example. Everyone else sees it as the Wild West. There’s no vetting process for manipulated images on Instagram, where the doctored picture remains up with no note or disclosure from the palace. As of this writing, a bright red alert appears at the bottom, added by Instagram: “Altered photo/video. The same altered photo was reviewed by independent fact-checkers in another post.”
The WIRED design director thinks the errors are from the stamp tool. “It fuses the image together by pulling another part of the image.” When used haphazardly, this type of content stamp tool could easily introduce errors to an image, like the edges of clothing appearing to be cut off at random with poorly defined outlines.