Guardian archive director Luke Dodd recalls the Observer photographer Jane Bown 80th birthday shoot with Queen Elizabeth II and what sparked that warm smile
Jane Bown’s first visit to the palace was to receive an MBE in 1985 and she found the experience so unsuited to her character – she is notoriously shy and self-effacing – that when she received a CBE a decade later she elected to have it conferred by her local Lord Lieutenant rather than return to the palace.Pomp and formality are not really Jane’s thing – she is much happier behind than in front of a lens.
One of Jane Bown’s great advantages is that she rarely knows much, if anything, about her subject – something she could not count on with the Queen. Often, her best pictures are snatched from truly awful situations – her justifiably famous portrait of Samuel Beckett was captured in 30 seconds in a dark alley in open defiance of the writer who famously hated to be photographed.
Luke Dodd is director of the Observer Archive which includes the Jane Bown Collection
