The Earl of Snowdon, who died on Friday at 86, was not only the one-time husband of the late Princess Margaret, the only sibling of Queen Elizabeth, he was also the photographer who shot the cover of Queen’s Greatest Hits.
Guitarist Brian May recalled the band’s encounter with real royalty on his website blog on Friday. He begins: “Sad to hear of the passing of Lord Snowdon. I can’t say I was his friend, though perhaps I would like to have been. We did spend a couple of days together as Queen (the rock group) and portrait photographer, and it was very memorable.”
He goes on to tell the story of how Lord Snowden told them they didn’t have to “try so hard” and was insistent that the shot be done with natural, not studio, light, and how that led to it taking two days to get the shot he wanted. He describes Lord Snowden as “a delightful, thoughtful, modest and gentle man.”
May also explains how a distortion effect was used on Snowden’s photo for the original album cover, but that when it was reissued years later, they decided to go with the photo “exactly as it was taken.” And he makes sure we know that, “You won’t find this stuff on Wikipedia…they don’t even mention who took the cover photograph” of what to date is the biggest-selling album in British history.