A photographer who took the last public picture of Queen Elizabeth II said she was "frail" but in "good spirits".
PA photographer Jane Barlow was dispatched to Balmoral to capture the moment when the Monarch met the new Prime Minister, formally pointing Liz Truss to her new role. Ms Barlow took some portraits while waiting for the Conservative leader to arrive at the Queen's Highland retreat, Balmoral.
Ms Barlow said in true British style there as small talk about the weather, with dark skies and heavy rain overhead for much of the day. But the photographer, who has worked with the PA news agency in Scotland for six years, said of the Queen: "I got a lot of smiles from her."
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Ms Truss was then "greeted with a big smile" when she was formally announced and came into the room. Ms Barlow said: "I've had so many lovely comments about the picture.
"It’s a real privilege to be able to take that picture, an honour and a privilege. It’s like that for a lot of our job. I was there to photograph her meeting the new Prime Minister but for me the best picture was the one of the Queen on her own. And it has obviously become more significant now.”
Queen Elizabeth II died aged 96 at Balmoral. The news was officially confirmed by The Royal Family's Twitter account at 6.30pm on Thursday, September 8.
Speaking about the Queen, Ms Barlow said: “She certainly did look more frail than when I photographed her in the summer. When she came up for Holyrood Week at the time they were telling me she would do one, perhaps two engagements, but she did quite a lot that week.”
That week saw Barlow photograph the Queen as she had audiences with Nicola Sturgeon and Holyrood Presiding Officer Alison Johnstone, and as she took part in a number of official engagements, including the Ceremony of the Keys, which marks the start of the week of Royal engagements north of the border and the Reddendo Parade, involving the Royal Company of Archers, which functions as the monarch’s ceremonial body guard in Scotland.
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