A celebrity photographer has revealed that the Queen disliked having her hands photographed and turned down his request to pose with a sword for a portrait due to her insecurity.
British photographer Rankin, who has captured pictures of celebrities including Madonna, David Bowie and Kate Moss, was one of 10 photographers commissioned to take a picture of the late monarch for her Golden Jubilee back in 2002.
He's revealed that while taking her photograph the Queen refused to pose with a sword, telling him: "I don't like my hands".
Appearing on the latest episode of the Tea with Twiggy podcast, which was recorded prior to the Queen's death, Rankin opened up about his experience photographing Queen Elizabeth.
He said: "I was like 'I really want to photograph you holding the sword', and she said 'I don't like my hands' and [I thought] that's the best get out of holding the sword."
"I'm probably not supposed to say that," he added.
He also revealed that despite the Queen turning down his initial request to pose with a sword, the picture he took turned out to be one of the palace's favourites because of how happy she looked.
Rankin recalled that after working on an exhibition earlier this year he got a 'really amazing' note, he said: "The curator said that my photograph of her is one of their favourites, which I think means the palace's favourites, because she's really laughing in my picture."
Speaking to Twiggy about his inspiration for capturing the happy picture, Rankin said: "She had a really great sort of sense of humour, so that is what I was really looking for when I went to take the photograph."
He also recalled a moment before photographing her where he got to see this sense of humour first-hand, adding: "She was walking down this corridor, and it had to be the length of a football field the corridor, and I could see her and the footman walking and they were both laughing, they were chatting."
He said that the Queen and the footman had been "cracking up with each other" and he wanted to capture this side of her in his picture.
It seemed that this proved to be an easy task with the photographer saying: "She came in and this wave of empowerment sort of washes over you, you just go 'wow', I've never met any powerful wave like that, I've never felt that aura and she was just so funny from the minute she walked in."
Rankin said that while he only spent five minutes with the Queen and can't say he knew her 'intimately' he could tell that she was 'so, so smart' and that his experience photographing her was 'really, really brilliant'.
