Queen Elizabeth II, 1926–2022

In honor of Britain’s longest-reigning monarch, Annie Leibovitz and Hamish Bowles pay tribute to a life of resilience and service.

Annie Leibovitz was invited to photograph Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace in 2007. She took four portraits that day—and would photograph the queen a second time, at Windsor Castle in 2016. Here are her memories of her first, historic sitting.

I wanted a straightforward, intelligent portrait. I thought that this would be my only chance to photograph the queen, and I was allotted less than half an hour. They showed me catalogs of her clothes and jewelry and asked me to pick what she would wear. I picked a long gold dress as a base. The rest—the dark cloak that Cecil Beaton photographed her in, and the Order of the Garter robe, and a fur coat—would be layered on top of it and removed for the different pictures.

The queen arrived late, not in a terribly good mood, and was wearing a tiara, which wasn’t in my plan (the tiara was supposed to come later in the shoot). I asked if she could remove it so that the image would be simpler. “Less dressy” was how I put it. “Less dressy!” the queen replied. “What do you think this is?”