Photo: Alexi Lubomirski
“When I got off the phone, I said, ‘I think Kensington Palace just called me?’ Two days later I was sitting in front of [Harry and Meghan] talking concepts,” the celebrated photographer exclusively tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue.
Lubomirski, 47, looks back at the commission — which he initially thought was a prank — in his new bookThe Sittings (2003-2023), a collection of 113 of his favorite portraits. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s engagement photos are included in the spread, alongside his images of theirroyal weddingday in May 2018. Reflecting on how it all came together, Lubomirski tells PEOPLE that the original call came on an emotional day for his family.
PHOTO: Alexi Lubomirski
“My mum was having a brain tumor taken out, so I was just all over the place. And then my poor brother and sister were looking at me on the phone because it was after 10 hours of waiting for the doctor to call. So I got on the phone and my face was like, ‘I’m sorry, what?’ My poor brother and sister were like, ‘Oh my God, what’s happened to our mum?’ " he says.
“It just popped in my head because I saw his overcoat and I said, ‘Can you put that on?’ And then everything just starts folding together,” he tells PEOPLE of the creative process.
Ed Feingersh/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty
That spring, Lubomirski was called back to Windsor Castle to shootPrince Harryand Meghan’s historicroyal wedding, summing it up as “probably the most high-pressure job” he’s had to date.
“That was a blur,” recalls the photographer, himself the descendant of a Polish princely house. “I got about two hours of sleep the night before, thinking to myself, ‘Okay, do I have everything? How am I going to get everyone in place? How am I going to make theQueensmile?’ "
Given time constraints, Lubomirski tells PEOPLE there wasn’t a second to spare — so he inventively made the most of his time with the newly minted Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
“I’d only had three minutes to get them into the garden, take pictures, and it took three minutes to get themtothe garden,” he says. “And there was one shot of the couple sitting in the rose garden, which is an image that I got. It was that first time they were alone, as in out of the public site after being married. So it was a really, very special moment, this moment of calm.”
Alexi Lubomirski
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The Sittings (2003-2023)will be released in the U.S. on May 31, with all proceeds benefiting the humanitarian organization Concern Worldwide.
source: people.com
