The Image Makers section examines how a photo influences our view of reality. This week: Princess Alexia’s Budget Day debut.
On a day when a lot had been the same for a long time, it was clear that one striking new element would attract a lot of attention: the debut of the just 18-year-old Princess Alexia on Budget Day. She was allowed to come along for the first time, in an aid carriage, but a little later she was on the balcony, next to her eldest sister. My thoughts briefly turned to youngest sister Ariane, who had to stay at home. Because tradition wants it that way.
What seemed to be Alexia’s week also became the week of photographer Erwin Olaf, who died unexpectedly on Wednesday, who had built up a good bond with the royal couple over the years. “We will miss his friendship,” they wrote in a response. From Olaf’s immense oeuvre, the remarkable portraits he made of the family in 2018 in the Royal Palace on Dam Square also emerged, including ‘the walking portrait’, made in the central hall of the palace.
Typical Olaf to turn that age-old, stately marble into a catwalk; his way of breathing new life into the tradition of royal portraits. In this series he also made a striking portrait of the then 13-year-old Alexia, who leans against a marble column in a black velvet dress; also a bit like the birth of a photogenic princess.
ANP photographer Freek van den Bergh was the group photographer on duty at Noordeinde Palace on Tuesday. “There is very little space there,” he says. ‘There is room for one cameraman and one photographer’. And they stand there to witness the opening of the palace doors, the coming out of the royal family and the bowing to the banner, in this case of an honorary air force squadron. And the driving away of the carriages.
The photo above was taken when the carriage in which Alexia was taking a seat started moving. Caption: ‘Princess Alexia leaves Noordeinde Palace for Budget Day.’ Van den Bergh characterized the atmosphere as ‘cheerful nervousness’: ‘She was in an amused conversation with uncle and aunt Constantijn and Laurentien.’ The photo was taken as the carriage passed in front of the photographer and captures the moment the smiling princess sees the audience out of the corner of her eye. The frame of the carriage, with the crowns subtly visible above the window, complete the photo.
Later that day, Van den Bergh photographs Sigrid Kaag, who shows the briefcase with the Budget Memorandum. ‘It was a busy day for The Hague, but otherwise a quiet Budget Day.’ Most newspapers would opt for a photo with the princesses the next day. This newspaper put a photo of David van Dam on the front page, with Kaag presenting her latest Budget Memorandum; also a historical moment.
Budget Day traditionally ends for the royal family with the balcony scene, waving to the Orange-minded people for years. In recent years it has increasingly become the location where voices of protest can be heard. Alexia has a face that is difficult to hide emotions, she is not one for the frozen smile. Leave it to us and the internet to interpret her state of mind.
VolkskrantTV critic Hassan Bahara wrote quite subdued about the NOS images: ‘Only in the look of the debuting Princess Alexia did one seem to detect any hint of desperation.’ However, in the caption of a screenshot of the waving princesses that accompanied the piece, she was already referred to as ‘the desperate-looking Princess Alexia’. In doubt? Real?
In the meantime, Team Lubach saw something completely different and made a so-called TikTok video of Alexia for the evening broadcast, which really went full millennial. After having to get up ‘extremely early’ and having had oatmeal ‘as usual’, she sat comfortably in ‘the worst carriage there is’, which of course was ‘screechingly mediocre’. And: ‘Laughing at ordinary people really takes the moisture out of me bakkus drawn.’ The video went viral.
Later in the evening, the Netherlands had to deal with the disgusting scene of some elderly men using their airtime to comment on the appearance of the princesses under the guise of a fashion report or out of a general lack of decency. You could gradually call that tradition.
Then I’d rather go back to Olaf. In the Rijksmuseum’s online image bank you will also find the close-up portraits he made of the family in 2017. Anyone who zooms in sees in Alexia’s pupil the silhouette of the photographer. A portrait within a portrait.