Crown heads of state: New portraits of Queen and Prince William

This portrait of Queen Elizabeth II was taken by photographer Hugo Rittson Thomas, with a technique that involves the use of mirrors to show the subject from all four sides.

Included in the series are also portraits of Her Majesty herself, along with the Duchess of Cornwall and the Duke of Cambridge. All of the pictures, which were taken over the last few years, will be featured in a new exhibition The Queen’s People.

Mr Rittson-Thomas, who has photographed people including the Dalai Lama and David Cameron, spoke of technical problems during his session with the Queen.

In her full-length portrait the Queen is wearing a burgundy coloured dress, designed by her personal assistant and adviser Angela Kelly, with the Waterloo badge of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards. “She was very calm and cool and put me at ease”, he said. Rittson-Thomas told BBC News he managed to capture her smile after he asked her how she would feel if one of her horses won the Epsom Derby horse race.

The photographs were taken in 2013 at Windsor Castle.

The image of Prince William, meanwhile, was captured in 2012 when he and his wife, the Duchess of Cambridge, joined the Irish Guards to celebrate St Patrick’s Day.

The exhibition features other members of the Royal Family including Prince William, who had posed for a similar portrait before.

Prince William in his Irish Guards uniform. Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, had her picture taken earlier this year and can be seen wearing a attractive Bruce Oldfield outfit and family jewels.

Rittson Thomas’s portraits in this series try to show the range of appointments that exist within, and connected to, the Royal Household, with portraits ranging from peers to The Queen’s piper and from the Earl Marshal to The Queen’s Pageant Master.