The price of a prince's grin

Prince William

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On his first New Zealand visit, Prince William wore an apricot and cream romper suit, played with a wooden Buzzy Bee and – according to newspaper reports of the time – was worth up to $20,000 to paparazzi photographers.

Adjust for inflation, and that's almost $60,000 now. But today's photographers are not counting on a royal cash cow when the prince arrives in Auckland next Sunday.

Arthur Edwards, legendary royal photographer for British tabloid The Sun, says those prices are long gone.

"It's no secret that newspapers and magazines around the world are fighting for existence," says the 69-year-old, who is preparing for his third trip to New Zealand with Prince William.

"The last time anything would have been worth that much would have been Charles and Camilla, when everybody knew they were co-habitating but nobody had a picture of it."

Local freelancers say the prince's three days here are so tightly scheduled there will be little scope for a big-money shot.

"It will be beautifully documented," agreed Edwards. "But there won't be nothing extraordinary. Unless he's seen canoodling a girl in a nightclub, which I doubt he'll have time for – but that would be worth quite a bit."

How much?

"Maybe 10,000 pounds ($20,000)," offers Edwards. "If he was getting sort of really stuck in..." Edwards, however, is betting on the Prince staying true to current love, Kate Middleton.

"It's not pictures of William and Kate that's going to make the money. It's whether William will marry Kate this year. That's the big question... they've just finished a holiday together in Scotland with Prince Charles up in the Balmoral estate. What were they talking about? Maybe they were talking about when is a good time to do it."

Edwards says a new privacy edict from the Queen – accompanied by lawyers' letters – has made British papers wary of paparazzi shots.

"The thing is, if the pictures are intrusive, they just won't be published... it's becoming less and less big business, and more big trouble for the agencies."

Edwards has photographed Prince William since the day he left St Mary's Hospital 27 years ago. "William said to me recently, 'I hope you never retire, Arthur'. And I said, 'I'll retire when I've done your wedding pictures'."

He says he remembers the nine-month-old William on the lawns of Auckland's Government House, during his first visit in 1983, "like it was yesterday".

"It was 11 o'clock at night in London and they were holding the last edition, and all the picture staff had been kept back to get it in. It was brilliant stuff, it was the first time we heard Prince Charles call him 'Wills' and he had his little bumble bee and Diana was so proud..."

Edwards says that although thousands of royal watchers turned out on that tour, public interest has waned. "That was massive because it was Diana. William was kind of the baggage."

Edwards, who was awarded an MBE in 2003, says he wants to get pictures of the prince opening Wellington's Supreme Court building, because he will be representing the Queen, "and I think that's quite momentous and archival".

Unofficially? "The girls are going to go crazy for him, like they did in 2005. So it's going to be a case of keep your eyes open and don't blink, because you never know what's going to happen."

Prince William's three-day New Zealand visit begins next Sunday and will be documented on Bebo and Facebook. His itinerary includes a tour of Eden Park, sailing on the Hauraki Gulf, and attendance at a barbecue and hangi, before he heads to Australia.

- © Fairfax NZ News