The Royal Paparazza

I read about this exhibit ages ago. Out of spite, since I am unable to attend and there don't appear to be any decent supporting websites, I am only blogging about it now. There's something terribly charming about the thought of this shutterbug princess, particularly since the images one sees of Victoria and her brood tend to be of the dour and formal variety. I would love to have been present when the future queen asked one of Her Majesty's sailors to pose with a cat on his head; photography at the time hadn't yet developed into the "informal snaps" stage it's at now, so she must have come across a bit batty, but she's the future queen, so you know he didn't dare question her. How cute!

"There are also pictures of seamen in the royal yacht made to pose with various pets, including a Lieutenant Watson with a Siamese cat perched on his head and a clearly exasperated rating, Ernest Davies, caught in the act of drying a small dog named Carlos on a sunny day in 1899.

The queen clearly snapped much like a modern tourist on holiday. She caught her husband fast asleep - presumably after a good lunch - in a horse-drawn carriage during a visit to Sardinia in 1905.

And on a trip to Marseille in 1899 she took a picture of a couple canoodling in their boat through the porthole of her cabin on the royal yacht."