Christmas Message mysteries #2: The Vanishing Smile

Smiling broadly in 2006

From the 1970s onwards it became customary to release at least one publicity photograph of Queen Elizabeth II (sometimes several) to mark each year's Broadcast, rather than only for the most significant years, which had previously been the case.  Invariably in these images Her Majesty would be wearing her familiar smile and, in the years after 1990 when she wore spectacles to read her speeches, the Queen would often remove them for the posed photograph.

This practice continued for many years until suddenly, from 2007, Elizabeth II's expressions in the Broadcast's publicity pictures started to take on a more serious tone.  The reason for this is far from clear and cannot simply be attributed to changes of photographers who had differing approaches.  From the mid 1990s onwards the principle accredited photographers for the Christmas Broadcast were John Stillwell and Fiona Hanson (occasionally Steve Parsons stepped in), both of whom initially photographed the Queen smiling but in later years looking more sombre.

Looking more serious in 2007

Whatever the reason, anyone who studies the publicity photographs from before 2007 and compares them with those afterwards can observe that Elizabeth II smiles a lot less.  Occasionally, a secondary photograph was released showing Her Majesty smiling in an apparently unguarded moment, but not looking at the camera (see 2008, 2009 and 2017), but the posed, primary photographs generally depict the Queen with a more neutral expression.

 

The 2022 BBC documentary When the Queen Spoke To the Nation features behind the scenes footage  from the 2020 Christmas Broadcast.  In the clip, Victoria Jones (who photographed the Queen for her final two Messages) almost literally dives into the set to get her shots the second the cameras stop rolling.  There was certainly no 'say cheese!' moment.  Could it have been, therefore, that in an age of serious news stories where Queen Elizabeth was increasingly called upon to refer to natural disasters, terrorist atrocities, wars and economic difficulties, there was a conscious attempt to make the Queen look more as she did while she was delivering her speeches, rather than have smiling portraits that did not always fit the reporting?