The book Royale Rejser: Bag kulisserne med de kongelige by John Lindskog depicts the story in 15 chapters of various photographers who have been following the Danish royal family through the years.
It tells the story of King Frederik who did not much care for the photographers, but had one he tolerated. Prince Henrik who was taught how to sail by a photographer. The photographer who got the scoop of Mary and Frederik together on holiday in Australia, based on something Mary had said in an interview a lot earlier. It also tells of how they might not publish something because the royal family asked them not to.
Of course, the stories in the book are subjective – as the last chapter’s interpretation that Queen Margarethe will abdicate any day now. (The book was written in 2009.)
The photographers share the stories of how it is to travel with the royal family. How they can joke with them one minute, and be very formal the next.
And the story of how one of them – Martin Jørgensen married into the family, sort of.
As more and more newspapers and magazines are starting to rely on pool photography and buy from a limited number of photographers, it seems like the type of photographers in this book, who photograph the royal family for so long that they get a relationship with them, may be a dying race.
I found the book fascinating, and if you read Danish, it is definitely worth a read.
