📸 CHRIS LEVINE: Queen Elizabeth II's Photographer

The late Queen's photographer Chris Levine joins Jonesy & Amanda to chat about his experiences with the royal.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jersey and Amanda gem Nation.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
She was the most photographed, most loved and talked about,
spied upon, praise, criticized, popular woman on the planet all
over the globe, and in every moment of her long life,
people have wanted to watch her through a peephole, wanted
to discover new things, to understand her, to answer the
question who was Queen Elizabeth? I? In reality, well, someone
who has granted a window into her life and gave

(00:23):
us some of the most well loved photographs of the
late Monarchy's photography. Chris Levine, he joins us. Now, Hello, Chris, Hello, Chris, Hi,
go Chris. I find this fascinating. I mean, I know
there's a new documentary Portrait of a Queen that tells
a story of the Queen through all the portraits that
were done of her. What is it like in coming

(00:44):
to coming in front of the queen like this? Does
she have a thousand people around her? Are you nervous?
How does it go?

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Yeah? Well, I was quite blase about it because it
was in the diary for about three years. But in
the week leading up to her I did start get
quite nervous. But I got a call to say, what
would I like her majesty to wear, you know. So
when she actually arrived at the moment you know in
the diary three years, when she arrived wearing the dress
that I've been looking at a couple of days previously,

(01:14):
with the one line of felt that I selected, it
was quite surreal and she could see I think that
I was. I was a little bit nervous.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
Well, naturally she would because you've dressed her up. I
don't think anyone else would do that.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
Well, also, if you know that she came into the
yellow drawing room where she has most of her portraits taken,
you know, and usually there'd be an easel in the corner,
but I was working with light. I mean, I had
incense going. I had a light modulator. I wanted to
create a real sense of calm in the room for
me to do the portrait. So I could see her
looking around and you know, kind of thinking, you know

(01:48):
what it's like the tartst and not for who all
this technology and who's this weirder?

Speaker 3 (01:53):
But I imagined the Queen wouldn't be an incense kind of girl.
Would that be fair to say?

Speaker 1 (01:59):
Yeah? And I think, but you know, she really got
into it in fact, you know, she granted me a
second sitting that was never on the schedule, and I've
had two private audiences whether after that, to show the
work in progress. So I think she took a real
interest in the project.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Does she have an entourage of about one hundred people?
Were they Sometimes when we meet huge celebrities, We've never
obviously met someone the caliber of the Queen, but it's
the people around that make your life hard.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Well, it's you know, this was in her home, this
is in ducking In Palace, and so it's really just
Angela Kelly and her private secretary and my team. So no,
it was quite quite an intimate experience.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
And did you make little chitty check? Do you make
small talk? I mean, she's the Queen of small talk,
But what do you say as you're trying to get
the portrait?

Speaker 1 (02:44):
Yeah, well it's the first sitting. It was quite you know,
it was quite awkward in a way because I think,
you know, she was quite unfamiliar with the technology, and
you know, I was a bit kind of awestruck, and
George Bush was staying there. Security had never been tied.
I actually don't think it really was the day to
have her portrait taken. But the second sitting, it was

(03:04):
really light and it was really nice Chris, you know Hawaiian.
She'd obviously been given a portfolio of work. She knew
where I was coming from that electric experiment with light,
and it was much more relaxed and actually all the
magic happened in that second sitting.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
And how many shots did you take?

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Well, we had a camera that we designed especially for
the shoe, but I shot this in three D to
the pieces in the National Portrait Gallery their light boxes
in three dimensions, so it was a special camera system
on each path. It took two hundred images from left
to right to create the different views, and we shot
about ten thousand in total. Wow wow.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
So how long was the session altogether?

Speaker 1 (03:43):
I had two sittings for both about an hour and
a half, and then two private audiences with her to
show the work in progress.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
She must have been very patient, because Jonesy, whenever you
have a photo one take, you say.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
That, Well, did they always go okay, can we do
one more?

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (03:56):
We'll come on, you got it? What's the matter with you?

Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Was she patient?

Speaker 1 (04:00):
Well? She was, and my assistant me and has said
to her because as a certain and I had. One
of the setups I had was like media says, like
having a portrait for your passport, photograph taken, ma'am, And
she said, one doesn't need a passport when.

Speaker 3 (04:14):
Your head's on the step. It's a good thing you
did it like back then and not recently because the
small til you wouldn't be able to talk about the
family in any way.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's a different era now. We
always knew when she passed it was going to be
the beginning of a whole new chapter. And you know,
isn't it just And.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
When you're taking her portrait, I know you're trying to
capture something of her as a person. How do you
go about that as opposed to just pointing your iPhone
at her and taking a click.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
Well, at a time, I was getting into meditation and
I was really trying to create a sense of stillness
in the work, So I was very conscious of the
Madine's breathing, so as the cameras to the pass I
was trying to time it with her breathing cycle, and
I had her looking in the distance at an ultra
violet cross that I'd make. She's head of the Church
of England. I thought she needs to fix her eye

(05:03):
while the camera moves, and you know, with the incense burning,
the light sculpture, the subdued lighting, you know, I think
she took a moment of rest. I mean, likeness of
being with her eyes closed was when I asked her
to rest in between shots, and that was just a
moment of magic.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
It's a beautiful portrait. I'm looking at it now of
the Queen with her eyes.

Speaker 3 (05:23):
Pitching whoo.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
Or maybe not.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
Chris is not saying anything further about that.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
It's fascinating.

Speaker 3 (05:30):
I think it's just an amazing portrait of the Queen.
Comes to cinemas around Australia March eighteen. Chris Levine, thank
you for joining us.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
My pleasure,