Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's Photographer Friend Defends Himself on More Image Manipulation Claims

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's close friend and photographer is providing receipts — again.

Misan Harriman, who has captured photos of Meghan and Harry during milestone moments with their family in recent years, shared the metadata and unedited version of a photo he took of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex at the 2022 One Young World Summit after content creators on YouTube claimed he manipulated the image.

"So this is the RAW/DNG file of my image," Harriman captioned the post on X Thursday. "It's extraordinary that photographers are having to do this, what is worse is that @YouTube @YouTubeCreators is allowing these pages that publish so much hate to stay up on their platform. They are easy to find and should be easy to remove. I will be speaking to the senior team at YouTube directly about this, this is a trust and safety issue."

He continued, "As you can see in the file nothing has been manipulated beyond a Color grade, the crazy accusations insidious!! This is the last time I am doing this. Image metadata is attached and there is a link to the actual RAW/DNG file. Also folks that understand photography will know the difference between an edited image and a manipulated image."

Harriman, who was nominated for an Oscar for his short film The After, also added, "In regard to defamation, my team are looking at every legal recourse. This has to stop."

Last week, the photographer similarly posted the original, unedited version of the photo that Meghan and Prince Harry shared in 2021 to announce they were expecting their second child, Princess Lilibet. Revealing the snapshot in color for the first time, as it was originally shared in black and white, Harriman posted the metadata backing up that he took the intimate portrait remotely on an Apple iPad after the Daily Mail reported that the image was "doctored."

"Unfortunately, there’s been an article on the Daily Mail saying that I have admitted to doctoring the pregnancy announcement portrait I took of Harry and Meghan," Harriman said in a video shared on social media. "Apparently, I was switching out trees and meadows...this is crazy."

"No trees or meadows were moved or swapped, this is the image straight out of camera," he added, clarifying that he only changed the color grade.

Harriman also came to the defense of Chris Allerton, the photographer behind the camera for  Prince Archie's official christening portraits in 2019, who was also accused of editing.

Harriman said in part on Wednesday, "He’s a great photographer who doesn’t deserve any of this. Please leave this man alone."

Old photos released by the British royal family are under new scrutiny after Kate Middleton issued an apology following the release of a portrait shared in honor of Mother's Day in the U.K. earlier this month. The image of Princess Kate, who has been out of the public eye as she recovers from abdominal surgery, with her three children said to have been taken by Prince William was pulled by multiple news agencies due to suspicions of manipulation.

The Princess of Wales said in her statement, "Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing. I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused."

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Prince Louis celebrates his sixth birthday next month, prompting the question of whether the Prince and Princess of Wales will keep their tradition of releasing a new portrait of their son to mark the occasion following the latest controversy.

The Sunday Times reported that Prince William, 41, and Princess Kate, 42, plan to share a new photo of their youngest child, but there is no "firm decision" on whether Kate will get behind the camera (as she's done in the past) or they'll tap a professional photographer.