SEE THE LIGHT
Ashley Hicks captures the shadows as well as the sun-dappled splendours of Buckingham Palace in a magnificent photography book
It’s not easy to turn off the lights in Buckingham Palace. No wonder they are redoing the electrics – finding switches is a challenge for an ordinary mortal like me. I spent a couple of weeks last year photographing the great rooms and was determined to use only daylight, to bring out their romantic atmosphere with moody shadows. Electric light tends to flatten, daylight to flatter, to my eye at least. So there I was, fumbling behind statues and giant porcelain vases, trying to turn off the over-cornice lights and electrified chandeliers.
I’d been to the Palace every June as a child, to watch my grandfather Lord Mountbatten, as Colonel of the Life Guards and Gold Stick-in-waiting, ride back along the Mall after the Queen’s birthday parade, Trooping the Colour. This was a huge annual excitement for me, mainly because of my father’s infectious enthusiasm for the day. He had been obsessed with Royal pageantry all his life; growing up in an Essex village, he dreamt of grandeur and ceremony, and of course he loved his occasional glimpses of them after he married.
We would be given drinks and sandwiches after the parade in the Centre Room, which lies behind the famous balcony. The room was filled with dazzling uniforms (my grandfather’s silver breastplate used as a mirror by my mother for her lipstick) but even for a boy obsessed with military fashion, the decoration held more of a fascination. From outside, the grey Portland stone façade, cold, formal and sober, offers no clue to the riot of exotic design that shimmers within. Everything here is Chinese: dragons, mandarins, pagodas, embroidery and lacquer, in bright colours of turquoise, yellow and celadon.
When I was asked by Jemima Rellie of the Royal Collection Trust to do a book on the Palace interiors, I jumped at the chance of capturing the grand State Apartments in daylit detail, but I was also thrilled to be allowed to photograph the four Chinese Rooms, which are not seen during the Summer Opening of the Palace. They are too small and fragile to cope with vast numbers of visitors, and too far off the main route – but through my pictures I hope many will be able to enjoy their fascinating beauty.
The State Apartments, usually seen all lit up and filled with people, have a real magic once the lights are turned off. Chiaroscuro is ever flattering, and these spectacular rooms bask in it. I have focused on details of the treasures of George IV’S collection displayed in the rooms, a sort of sampling that I hope captures the feeling of these extraordinary and splendid interiors in an intimate and vivid way. ‘Buckingham Palace: The Interiors’ by Ashley Hicks (£40, Rizzoli) is out now.