Buckingham Palace launches Flickr photo account

THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT IS ISSUED BY THE PRESS SECRETARY TO THE QUEEN

Buckingham Palace has launched an account on the online photo management site Flickr.

The British Monarchy Website Flickr account streams both up-to-the-minute images of royal engagements and archive photographs from the Royal Photograph Collection. The launch is timed to coincide with the Summer Opening of Buckingham Palace, as the site highlights photographs specially commissioned for the Palace’s exhibition The Queen’s Year, which opens on 27 July.

In addition to contemporary images of The Queen and Members of the Royal Family at work, the Flickr Account features historic photographs from current Royal Collection exhibitions at The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle and on loan to museums and galleries around the UK. They include masterpieces of early British photography collected by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

The Flickr photo site is the latest way in which the Royal Household is engaging with technological innovation and follows the launch of the new Royal website (www.royal.gov.uk) and the British Monarchy Twitter account in 2009 and the Royal Channel on You Tube in 2007. The British Monarchy Website Flickr account is a collaboration between Buckingham Palace, St James’s Palace and Clarence House.

The account includes:

- A “Latest news and diary” gallery showing the latest photographs from royal engagements.

- Collections from The Queen’s recent visit to Canada and New York, and Holyrood Week.

- A “Queen and Commonwealth” section, which includes pictures of Royal visits to Commonwealth realms and related engagements.

- Specially commissioned photographs for the exhibition The Queen’s Year at Buckingham Palace Summer Opening taken during The Queen’s programme of engagements over the past twelve months (including a State Banquet, a military review, diplomatic credentials and a Garden Party).

- Photography by Roger Fenton, Julia Margaret Cameron and other pioneering practitioners of the medium. These were collected by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, who lent their enthusiastic support to the new art form.

- Photographs of two generations of royal children, taken by Marcus Adams from 1926 to 1956, including images of The Queen and The Prince of Wales as babies.

In total at launch there are over 600 photographs, and this figure will increase as the Flickr account is continuously updated with photos from Royal engagements and events.