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Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are not about to be dragged into the royal Photoshop drama. Critics — and media outlets like the Daily Mail and the Telegraph — started analyzing the couple's 2021 pregnancy announcement photo after Kate Middleton's viral editing debacle, but the photographer, Misan Harriman, is now shutting down claims that the photo was doctored.
On Wednesday, Harriman shared the original photo of the couple without the black-and-white filter that the announcement had on it. In the image, which was shared to Instagram, Harry sits in the grass while a yellow maxi dress-clad Markle cradles her bump and lies against her husband's leg. Greenery and trees surround the couple whose smiles are illuminated by the sunlight. The second image in his slide is a screenshot of the photo's information, including that it was taken on an Apple iPad 8th generation.
"The original Jpeg without the black and White grade, I expect a full apology and retraction from @dailymail @telegraph," Harriman captioned his post. "No trees or meadows were moved or swapped, this is the image straight out of camera.
"Also that is a Jacaranda Tree, not a willow tree," he added, referring to his previous quotes on an episode of Michael Berkeley BBC Radio show Private Passions.
At the time, Harriman did not deny Berkeley's assumption that the photo was taken in a field and not under a willow tree. "They were lost at home in their love, in their garden, comfortable, celebrating new joy, new life, the fortitude of hoping for light in life after such a loss that they went through with the miscarriage," he said during the show, referring to Markle's miscarriage. "It really was a particularly joyous image to celebrate life itself."
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The photo was originally taken in 2021 when Markle was pregnant with their daughter Lilibet. Because COVID was still an ongoing health problem at the time, Harriman was able to capture the image remotely using an iPad.
Before posting the unfiltered image on his account, Harriman shared a video to clarify the situation. "Unfortunately, there’s been an article on the Daily Mail, saying that I have admitted to doctoring the pregnancy announcement portrait I took of Harry and Meghan," he explained. "Apparently, I was switching out trees and meadows...this is crazy."
He went on to say that his conversation with Berkeley had been taken out of his context and did not mean that he admitted to changing the photo. "How that exchange could amount to me admitting to doctoring an image is insidious and really dangerous journalism. Any mention of meadows and willow trees came out of the person doing the interview, not my mouth,” he said to the camera. “I did my best to ignore it and focus on what I wanted to talk about."
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