The Day the Queen's House Stared Back

29/3/2015

It wasn't an assignment. Not a quest. Not even an idea at the time.
It was just one of those days you end up in London, the weather draped in that miserable grey March shawl, and you've got your camera because, well, why wouldn't you?

The Mall looked like someone had spilt a tin of red gloss and forgotten to clean it up. Damp, darkened patches ran down the centre like the city had been crying quietly all morning. Tourists hovered near the kerbs, bunched together in little knots, eyeing the Palace at the far end as if waiting for a royal wave that was never going to come.

And there it was, Buckingham Palace. All stately stone and symmetrical smugness, the Victoria Memorial out front catching what little light the sky could cough up. That gold-tipped statue was the only thing that looked alive in the whole scene, flashing like a medal pinned to a tired old jacket.

I didn't think about selling it. Didn't think about Alamy. I just planted myself dead centre on that slick red stretch, framed the shot, and clicked. People walked in and out of the frame: a couple walking a tiny dog who looked like it had seen better days, a bloke with a green shopping bag, a gaggle of strangers moving at half-speed under the weight of March.

The picture went home with me, got buried somewhere in the digital heap, and only later, much later, did it resurface, polished and uploaded to Alamy as my first-ever image. Now it sits there on their servers, filed away under "London," just another tiny slice of Britain available to the world for a fee. Here's the evidence.

It's funny how the "firsts" in life often arrive without ceremony. No fanfare, no champagne. Just a damp day in London, a casual click, and a Palace that didn't even know it was being immortalised for the world's stock photo shelves. You can license that moment now, if you've got the credit card for it — HNEX3N on Alamy.