ROB MUNDAY ‘I PRAYED THE SYSTEM WOULD WORK PROPERLY’
When he was asked to produce the first official 3D portrait of the monarch in 2003, Rob Munday was the UK’S only holographic photographer. And during the shoot for the portrait, he and his collaborator Chris Levine were able to capture the Queen’s “quizzical expression” in a relaxed test shot when she reacted to a comment made by her personal dresser, Angela Kelly.
But as it was a test shot, the image remained unnoticed in Rob’s archives for 18 years. Fortunately, he rediscovered it and it was unveiled this summer to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. Another portrait – Equanimity – from the same session was projected on to the BBC’S Broadcasting House during the two-minute silence the day before her funeral.
“It was very difficult because there’s no technology for doing holograms. I wanted to do my absolute best,” Rob says. “I built the whole system programme in just six weeks, and then prayed on the day that it would work properly.
“Three days before the shoot, I had to take the equipment to the palace in a Transit van. We just drove in and parked it under the Queen’s bedroom window. Then we had to carry it all up to a drawing room. We had to get six porters to carry it, manhandling this huge two-and-a-half-metre long machine. They manhandled it up the main staircase in the middle of Buckingham Palace, past all the royal paintings and everything.
“I was petrified they were going to drop it or someone would accidentally nick one of the paintings as we carried it up the stairs. It was an incredible experience.”