Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge learned her photography skills from her late paternal grandfather, Peter Middleton.
The 40-year-old royal is known to be a keen photographer and regularly gets behind the camera for official portraits of her and Prince William's three children, Princes George and Louis, eight and three, and six-year-old Princess Charlotte, and it's now been revealed that Peter Middleton sparked his granddaughter's interest in her hobby.
Claudia Acott Williams, the curator of Kensington Palace's new photography exhibition 'Life Through a Royal Lens', told the Sunday Express newspaper: "Her grandfather was a very good photographer. When she was a child, he would show her his slides. It was him who taught her how to take photographs."
Peter, the father of Catherine's dad Michael Middleton, was a former RAF pilot who died in November 2010 aged 90.
The duchess previously admitted her children beg her to stop taking photographs of them.
Catherine made her confession during a phone call with a woman named Ceri, whose black-and-white portrait of her young daughter Poppy embracing her paramedic father Mark before he left for work made it into the duchess' 'Hold Still' lockdown photography collection, as they talked about taking pictures of their kids.
After Catherine asked Ceri if she was a photographer, she replied: "No. Well, Mark would say otherwise just because I do take a lot of pictures of the family."
The duchess laughed and said: "It's like me. Everyone's like, 'Mummy, please stop taking photographs.' "
Ceri added: "I know, but I love it. I love looking back. I think when you have children, time seems to go into warp speed, really, and it's just a lovely thing for me. You look back and see how much the children have grown."
Elsewhere on the call - which was recorded in autumn 2020 but release last June - Catherine explained she'd selected Ceri's photo, which was titled “Be Safe Daddy”, as one of the 100 images to feature in her digital exhibition and book about life during the coronavirus pandemic because it showcased "strength, courage and resilience" and the "tenderness and importance" of families.
She added: "It's such a sensitive and tender moment between a father and a daughter. These simple moments have impacted so many and really resonated with so many across the country so thank you for sharing your photograph and your story."