I have held a number of exhibitions of my royal photographs in the past, with specific themes, in venues including The Royal Yacht Britannia, Ascot Racecourse and Windsor Guildhall, and my intention had been to do so to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Although I have been living in New Zealand since 2018 the majority of my 100,000 plus royal photographs remain, in print form, in the UK, for obvious reasons. I have access to most of the digital ones now, but it makes it very difficult to co-ordinate anything properly with half of your material on each side of the world! Having always been convinced that I can make anything happen if I really put my mind to it, I had still been hopeful that I would be able to arrange something around this important anniversary. Then, in December, I had a heart attack and ground to a complete halt for three months - the crucial three months for planning something like a photographic exhibition in April. But then I had an idea. Who says that a photographic exhibition has to be a physical thing in the 21st century? Well, in general I do, but my determination not to have my idea completely dashed took over, and I started thinking virtually. This, as anyone who has ever seen or heard me fighting with my laptop or my mobile phone, is a scary thought, but, after throwing around a lot of ideas I came up with this. A website of my own, to host an exhibition of photographs. Not only do I not need printing or frames or a venue, but it can be viewed by any of my family and friends around the world, while they have a cup of coffee. I have done this entirely on my own. I am the least technically minded person I know, but I am also the daughter of parents who taught me to believe in myself, so I did. I have loaded every image myself, added every frame myself, multiple times, and not accidentally deleted anything.

I was initially going to select 100 photographs, but then I amended it to 100 occasions. I have counted annual events as one occasion, or five occasions if it is a five day event, but included images from several years if I liked them. This makes sense to me, and gives a lot more photographs to look at! The whole website is very me - chaotic and disorganised, because technology and I are still sworn enemies, and I did not manage to master cropping at all. The quality of some is not as good as I would like,  because some have been copied multiple times eg from original print to photocopy to photograph on phone, simply because of their location, but if I liked them I have included them. There are also many major events that are not included at all, either because I have already featured them in a big exhibition, or because I do not have access to them at the  moment. There are some stories featured that do not have photos, and none of the images is captioned.

I  could never have taken these photographs without the love and support of my parents, plus Sam and Zachary, and I would not be able to be doing this now without the love and ongoing support of my lovely Kathy Kathy. They have all helped to make me who I am and helped me believe that I can do anything. I have done it and I am very proud of it. I hope that anyone looking at them enjoys the images as much as I enjoyed taking them all, over so many years.

I can hardly believe it, but this was finished before midnight on 20th April 2026 in the UK, which is where I will be when I hit the button to go live, and hope for the best. What could possibly go wrong?

 

Julia McCarthy-Fox - 21st April 2026