Why photography is a royal hobby?

"Photography is the art, application and practice of creating durable images
by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor or
chemically."

The word photography was created from the Greek words phôs = light and
graphé or drawing. So literally it was drawing with light. 

It always is fascinating that an image can be catched by a photo camera.
It's a bit like magic. 

Besides the magical side, photography also has a great and long history. 

History

Ibn al-Haytham, an Arab physisist who lived between 965 and 1040,
invented the camera obscura as well as the first true pinhole camera.

Later, Leonardo da Vinci mentioned natural camera obcscura that are
formed by dark caves  on the edge of a sunlit valley. 

The birth of photography was by inventing means to capture and keep
the image produced by the camera obscura. 

*Albert Magnus (1193-1280) discovered silver nitrate;
* Georg Fabricius (1516-1571) discovered silver chloride;

But around 1800, the British inventor Thomas Wegwood made the
first known attempt to capture the image in a camera obscura by means
of a light sensitive substance. 

In Brazil, Hercules Florence had apparently started working out a silver-
salt based paper process in 1832. Later it was named Photographie. 

Meanwhile, another British inventor, William Fox Talbot invented
the paper based photography. In 1840 he created the calotype process
which used the chemical development of a latent image. 

Originally all photography was in black-and-white and even after 
color film was available, black-and-white photography continued to
dominate for decades due to its lower cost. 

Color photography was explored beginning in the 1840's. The first
permanent color photograph was taken in 1861 by James Clerk Maxwell.

In 1988, the first digital camera to both record and save images in a 
digital format was created by Fujfilm. 

Royals and photography

United Kingdom

Queen Victoria of The United Kingdom was the first queen who was
ever been photographed both in official portraits and in portraits of
her daily life. Due to Queen Victoria, photography  became very
popular in England. In 2014 a special exhibition was organized at the
Getty Museum in Los Angeles (United States of America). To look at
Queen Victoria's relationship and influence on photography. More on
this link. 

Her favourite photographer was George Washington Wilson (1823-
1893). In 1849 he started his career as a portrait miniaturist. Later
he switched into portrait photography. He received a contract to
photograph the royal family. He worked for Queen Victoria and
Prince Albert. 

Another royal photographer of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert was
Alexander Bassano (1829-1913). 

A third photographer of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom was
John Jabez Edwin Mayall (1813-1901). 

Later Princess Margaret of the United Kingdom married Antony-
Armstrong-Jones (who became first Earl of Snowdon). He was a
photographer. 

It also is no big secret that Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom
loves to take pictures herself. 

Another leading British photographer was Marcus Adams (1875-

1959). He took the first photographs of the Duchess of York and her 
daughter princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II and the
Queen Mother).

Nowadays the Duchess of Cambridge is a keen photographer. She also
is a royal patron of the Royal Photographic Society. This was founded
in 1853!

Belgium

In Belgium, Queen Elisabeth of Belgium (1876-1965), born Duchess in
Bavaria was a keen photographer. Already during World War I she took
pictures everywhere (where she was allowed to go).

King Albert II of Belgium also is a keen photographer and King Filip 

also likes to take pictures. When his daughter Crown Princess Elisabeth
was born, he took pictures from her with her relatives at the hospital. 

Russia

According to @empressofHaB

members of the House of Romanov also liked to take pictures. There was
a huge collection of private photos. 

The Netherlands

This part of the blogpost was made together with @nettyroyal

Royal photographs started with Queen Wilhelmina of The Netherlands. 

She really had lots of artistical talents. When she was 8 years old, she
received a Kodak. It was Evert Kerkmeijer who learned her to use this
machine. 

* Maurits Verveer  was a famous royal photographer.
He received in 1863 a present from Queen Sophie

for his photographs. Later he took pictures from
Queen Wilhelmina - then Princess. 

In 2019 Blauw Bloed, a famous Dutch Royalty program made a reportage

about the current members of the royal family who like to take pictures.

Prince Bernhard sr., the husband of Queen Juliana of The Netherlands was
a keen photographer, he also made movies. Just as his daughter, the former
queen Beatrix and his son-in-law, Prince Claus.

It isn't a secret that prof. Pieter van Vollenhoven and Princess Amalia like

to take pictures as well. 

Royals who dislike photography

Austria

After the age of 32, Empress Elisabeth of Austria 'Sisi' didn't want more
portraits or photographs. 

However Ludwig Angerer was a very famous Austrian photographer. 

He was appointed by Emperor Franz Joseph to take pictures of him and
his court.

Hint by: 

@empressofHaB

Conlusion

I'm sure that not all the royals who like or dislike photography are mentioned
in this blogpost. 

Nevertheless photography really is a beautiful craft and I hope that people 
maintain this activity during the new Lockdown. 

Source pictures: Wikipedia