Photographer recalls clicking Queen’s pictures in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: Nearly 40 years after he clicked Queen Elizabeth II’s photographs during her visit to Hyderabad in November, 1983, Lenny Emanuel still has vivid memories of the assignment, which he says was ‘really tough’.

Lenny, along with his brother Anthony Emanuel, of Premier Studios in Secunderabad, are among those who captured the changing face of the twin cities, and its people, right from the days of good old analogue (film) photography.

“We were called by the Holy Trinity Church as the official photographers of the special service at the church for the Queen’s 36th wedding anniversary,” recalls Lenny, 72.

“The security guys did not allow us inside the church. There was a line, and we were not supposed to cross it, which must have been about 50 feet from the main steps of the church. We were well-equipped but, and took two vantage points, from where we managed to get some good shots,” says Lenny, whose brother Anthony passed away in November 2016.

The shooting process too was tough, he says, with photographers not supposed to walk in front of the Queen.

“We were not supposed to show our backs and so we had to click walking backwards,” says Lenny, who still has the negatives and the contact sheets from that day.

Those were the days of analogue photography, a long call from today’s mirrorless and digital cameras. Lenny says he took along a Nikon F camera with a 200mm lens for the ‘royal assignment’, both of which he still treasures with him.

During the Queen’s visit, he recalls, there was one Indian photographer who jumped the line drawn by the security forces. “They were very polite. They just took him into a van parked nearby and drove away,” he laughs, adding that he and Anthony were careful and stuck to the guidelines.

“Those were the days when photographers followed decorum. There was not much jostling,” he says, adding that being an assignment from the church, the Emanuel brothers did not charge anything for the pictures.