In celebration of World Photography Day, several photos have been posted on Twitter of the Queen using a camera. The post was captioned "This #WorldPhotographyDay, here are a few moments where The Queen has been pictured behind the lens".
Over the years, the Queen has been captured at lots of events with a camera in her hands. She famously filmed her coronation tour in 1953 and has documented much of her life using vintage cameras.
Read More: Best film camera
In the most recently released images, the Queen can be seen operating a Rollei 35 in Tuvalu while on tour in the South Pacific. Meanwhile, in 1977 she can be seen using the same camera while visiting Lindsay Park Stud in South Australia. Another image shows the Queen teaching a young Prince Charles how to take a photo of Princess Anne using an old-fashioned twin-lens reflex camera.
The Queen isn’t the only member of the royal family to enjoys a spot of photography. The Duchess of Cambridge also has a passion for pictures and broke tradition with the first official photo of Princess Charlotte. Rather than using the royal photographer as usual, Kate captured the official image herself.
More recently, the Duchess of Cambridge spearheaded a community project called Hold Still where people were invited to submit portraits taken during a given six-week period during the pandemic. The final 100 portraits were displayed at the National Portrait Gallery for four weeks in October 2020.
Despite the royal family often appearing in front of the camera, it’s clear that photography is a hobby that is popular among the monarchy.
The camera the Queen can be seen using in the photo of her in Tuvalu is a Rollei 35. It's a miniature viewfinder camera first introduced in 1966. It was launched at Photokina and remains to be one of the smallest 35mm cameras available. Between 1966 and 1996, over two million Rollei 35’s were made – and today you can pick one up for anything between £80 to £800, depending on the model.
Read more
