The photographer behind Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's 2021 maternity photoshoot is setting the record straight.
After a recent article suggested the photo the Duke and Duchess of Sussex used to announce they were expecting now-2-year-old Princess Lilibet—a picture that showed them relaxing underneath a tree as Meghan placed a hand on her baby bump—had been doctored, Misan Harriman clapped back.
"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 said in a video shared to Instagram March 13. "Apparently, I was switching out trees and meadows and I admitted to this on an episode of a podcast called Private Passions. This is crazy."
Indeed, an article published by the Daily Mail March 12 stated "a resurfaced podcast has revealed that the intimate 2021 black and white photo of the couple used to announce her second was doctored."
However, Harriman noted this wasn't the case. To prove his point, he reflected on his 2022 appearance on BBC Radio 3's podcast Private Passions, where he'd discussed using technology to do virtual photoshoots amid the coronavirus pandemic. He also said host Michael Berkeley asked "leading questions" that ultimately led to the current mix-up.
At one point in the interview, Berkeley suggested Harry and Meghan—who are also parents to Prince Archie, 4—"weren't actually under a willow tree" when the photo was taken. As he put it, "They were lying outside in a meadow, weren't they, Harry and Meghan when you took [the] photograph of them?"
In response, Harriman—who is friends with Meghan and Harry and has photographed them several times—expressed what the photo represented.
"Yeah, they were lost in their love, at home, 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 a miscarriage," he explained on the podcast. "So it really was a particularly joyous image to celebrate life itself."
Now, Harriman is slamming how this part of the conversation is being characterized.
"How that exchange could amount to me admitting to doctoring an image is insidious and really dangerous journalism," he continued in his Instagram video. "Any mention of meadows and willow trees came out of the person doing the interview, not my mouth. I did my best to ignore it and focus on what I wanted to talk about. So to see an article saying, as fact, that I did what I did not do is extraordinary to me. And then to try and merge it with this current news cycle of what's happening—it's tragic to see."
And he even pulled out receipts to back his claims. Noting he took the picture on an 8-mega pixel iPad during a virtual shoot, he clarified "the only thing that was changed is a black and white color grade. That's it." And Harriman later shared "the original Jpeg without the black and white grade" to Instagram.
"No trees or meadows were moved or swapped," he added, "this is the image straight out of camera."
E! News has reached out to the Daily Mail—which has updated its article to reflect the photographer's denial—as well as to the host's rep and BBC Radio 3 for comment but has yet to hear back.
Harriman's response to the article comes days after Kate Middleton—who's been privately recovering from abdominal surgery—addressed a photo she shared on Mother's Day in the U.K that was later pulled from photo agencies for appearing to have been manipulated.
"Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing," the Princess of Wales tweeted March 11. "I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused."
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