Most often, she was caught casually in a swirl of motion—ministering in a hospice ward, scooping up her squirming sons, or loping down a Knightsbridge street. But it fell to a handful of selected photographers to preserve Diana's other image—as stately Windsor wife. Among her chosen favorites were Lord Snowdon, formerly married to Princess Margaret (his 1981 and 1985 portraits appear on the following pages); Terence Donovan, who died at 60 last November (he took the 1987 portrait); and the French-born Patrick Demarchelier (1990), whose first studio shots of Diana appeared in British Vogue that year. Four years later, following another session, Demarchelier would tell the Daily Mail that by now Diana was "more 'aware' than last time I photographed her. More...grown-up." He was among the privileged few who witnessed firsthand the metamorphosis of a country girl into a practiced princess. For the rest of us, their images tell the story.

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