Duchess of Cambridge has an eye for detail The Duchess of Cambridge has demonstrated an eager interest in photography for several years now. As well as being one of the hobbies she details on the official British monarchy website, alongside painting, her honours degree dissertation, listed by the school of History of Art at St. Andrews University, explored the photographic representations of childhood created by Lewis Carroll, author of the famed Alice in Wonderland books. In 2007, she also hosted the book launch and exhibition of British celebrity photographer Alistair Morrison at the Bluebird complex on London's King's Road. It's also rumoured she photographed some of the stock for her parents" Party Pieces company catalogue and website. With the release of the photographs taken during her visit to Borneo, part of the recent Far Eastern royal tour she took with the Duke on behalf of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, we have been given the opportunity to see her work. Four of the seven images picture detailed views of the jungle, the canopy above and the local wildlife taken whilst the Duke and Duchess were travelling on foot and by car through the rain forest in Danum Valley. She also captured three wide scope landscapes whilst flying into the reserve. Of the selection presented on the site, it is the aerial view of the palm oil plantation which is most compelling - a sea of deep greens spread out below in the vein of photographers like Yann Arthus-Bertrand, and a skilled exercise in abstraction. Because it has no available clues to either the size or the scope of the foliage in view, it turns instead into an arrangement of shape, space, pattern and perspective: not quite the world we know, something more uncanny. This sense of the unease one might feel under a vast canopy of jungle is also expressed by the Duchess's use of black and white for several of her shots. Without evidence of human habitation, and even under the glare of the sun, they feel overly close. Interestingly she has largely chosen to show the trees and the orangutang in silhouette, which makes for a more strident image - many landscape artists use a strong foreground to lead the eye into the picture frame. Her composition can be a little off, but she certainly has an exacting eye for detail. The two blue-toned landscape views are less interesting visually, but show something of the grandeur encountered on flying into a scarcely habited environment. The Duchess is said to have used the Canon G12 for her photographs, which is designed to cover wide-angle as well as subjects you might otherwise need a specialist telephoto lens for - a good choice for the traveller, but you tend to lose contrast and sharpness with atmospheric haze. Her Royal Highness is in good royal company, photographically speaking - Queen Victoria and Prince Albert's patronage helped foster the new art form during its early days in the nineteenth century when they became patrons of the newly established Photographic Society of London, commissioned portraits and purchased the work of British photographers. Albert is said to have been a talented photographer himself. A Time magazine article alleges The Queen herself is a keen photographer, enjoying taking pictures of her family. The Duke of York is also said to be photography buff and has taken a number of photographs of Elizabeth, including an official photograph for the Golden Jubilee in 2002.