Princess Mary and Princess Mette Marit come to Kristiansand

Adam from Visit Sørlandet ventured out to the city church to get some pictures of Mary and Mette Marit.

Let me start off by saying that I have not really been a fan of royalty. I did not see the point in it. It is expensive and out dated. After today, my opinion has been swayed.

I took several pictures of different people in Kristiansand for the Humans of Kristiansand project and one of the people I spoke to told me Princess Mette Marit of Norway was at the church. This was no reason for me to stay and wait, so I decided to go back to the office. I have of course nothing against Mette Marit, but I was simply not interested in royalty as a concept/tradition.

On the way there, I bumped into two colleagues Elisabeth and Inger. They told me that Princess Mary of Denmark was also at the church. Being Australian, I thought it was almost my duty to go back there and take a few pictures.

I had to wait a while before they came out so in the mean time I spoke to people in the crowd: kids, reporters, police and other photographers. I started to get a sense of why royalty is a good thing and to a lot of people, important.

The kids were excited - they could not wait to see the princesses and give them flowers. Their parents were excited for their children. Many old people were there in their best clothes anticipating the royals exit from the church. Local reporters were also excited. (I cannot say the same for the photographers.) Anyway, all in all, the local people were very proud and it seemed, almost a little nervous by royalty.

Hmm. This got me thinking. Maybe I have been seeing royalty through wrong eyes. I have seen it from a monetary view and not one for 'the people'. As a result, I also got a little excited.

I managed to place myself at the entrance of the church a little before they came out. A couple of minutes before they actually did, paparazzi was all over the place. They were pushing and shoving and asking the local people to get out of the way so they could take good pictures. I was disgusted and did not want to, in any shape or form, be associated with them. I knelt down and took a few pictures when they came out and quickly got away from the affray.

It is indeed a small world. Princess Mary comes from Hobart in Tasmania and I come from Melbourne. I actually used to work with her ex boyfriend. He was in an advertising agency and I worked for an Internet Marketing company, so we were constantly in meetings. She ended up in Denmark and I in Norway. 

It would be good to have a 'real life' chat to her to see how she adapted to a new country. Does she miss home, her friends and family? After a day out as a royal, does she go home, put her track suit pants on and play with the kids? I think so. You can take an Australian out of the country, but you can never take the Australian out of a person. We are a down to earth bunch.

The princesses followed the line of children and parents in a L shaped direction and eventually they went into the local Government office. It was just before the entrance that I was compelled to say 'It is good to see another Aussie here'. She looked over, smiled and waved. That was nice.

I never in a million years thought that I could write 'that was nice', because of my tunnel visioned ideas about royalty.

I can safely say that I am now converted. Royalty is a good thing.

Apologies for the quality of the pictures as I did not have the correct lens. I had my portrait lens on the camera for the Humans project.