This morning, royal fans (like myself) woke up to quite the treat—a brand-new birthday portrait of Prince Louis. The youngest son of Prince William and Kate Middleton turns the big seven today. And in following with tradition, Kensington Palace released a never-before-seen photo of the birthday boy on social media.
Naturally, I dove into every aspect of the image (and the Instagram caption) and I noticed something super striking—other than Louis's obvious missing front teeth...
The image shows a very grown-up looking Prince Louis sitting on a tree stump amongst nature. A few notable elements to the snap? He's missing his front teeth (I hope the Tooth Fairy brought him a few British pounds in exchange), he's ditched his signature shorts and he's giving us a very serious (even if friendly) pose when compared to his usual on-camera goofiness.
But perhaps the biggest thing I noticed involved the caption. The royals wrote, "Wishing Prince Louis a very Happy 7th Birthday!" and added a birthday cake emoji for good measure. They also credited the photographer, who happens to be the talented Josh Shinner and not the young royal's mother, Princess Catherine.
I found this to be super surprising as Catherine is often the genius behind her children's birthday portraits.
Take Prince Louis's sixth birthday portrait for example.
The caption read, “Happy 6th birthday, Prince Louis. Thank you for all the kind wishes today.” And it revealed that the pic was taken by the princess. Seeing her name in the photo credit line shouldn't be too big of a shock, as she is quite the photographer.
Mostly, I'm just thrilled to see the young prince looking so happy and so grown up. Happy birthday, Louis!
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