Why Queen Mother Didn't Want Photographer Taking Young Queen Elizabeth's Photos On Balcony

The Queen Mother reportedly got furious with a photographer who wanted to take a picture of a young Queen Elizabeth II on the Buckingham Palace balcony shortly after World War I.

In the book “Elizabeth: The Queen Mother,” royal historian Hugo Vickers detailed how photographer Cecil Beaton went to the palace to discuss the seating with the Queen. Beaton pressed for Windsor Castle to be the venue of their pictorial because it would appeal to his American audience.

Another idea proposed by Beaton was to capture the then-Princess Elizabeth outside the railings of the palace when the armistice was signed to cheer her on the balcony. But the balcony has not been safe since the bombing.

The Queen Mother was wary about allowing her eldest daughter to pose on the balcony because she herself came close to being killed when it was bombed on the morning of Sept. 13, 1940. However, Beaton was insistent with his idea and tried to convince the late royal.

“But the news, ma’am, is so good, shouldn’t it be reinforced at once? Wouldn’t that be courting a setback? Perhaps we’d better have all the materials ready – standing by – the cement and stoned piled in a corner,” Beaton said.

In his diary, Beaton also detailed what it was like photographing a fresh-faced Queen Elizabeth II when she was just 16 years old.

“Princess Elizabeth’s easy charm, like her mother’s, does not carry across in her photographs, and each time one sees her is delighted to find how much more serene, magnetic, and at the same time meltingly sympathetic she is than one had imagined. One misses, even in color photographs, the effect of the dazzlingly fresh complexion, the clear regard from the glass-blue eyes, and the gentle, all-pervading sweetness of her smile,” he wrote.

Queen Mother was the one that hired the services of Beaton. He also took the first photos of Prince Charles in 1948, as well as Her Majesty’s coronation.