Sir Geoffrey Shakerley, Bt

Unlike the Earl of Snowdon or the Earl of Lichfield (the debonair Shakerley’s brother-in-law), he was never a household name. Shakerley was probably best known for his photographic volumes Henry Moore: Sculptures in landscape (1977), published to mark the sculptor’s 80th birthday, and for his delightful The English Dog at Home (1987, with Felicity Wigan and Victoria Mather). Yet for years members of the Royal family smiled into his camera at weddings, christenings, anniversaries and in official portraits.

Shakerley’s second wife was the Queen’s cousin, the party planner Lady Elizabeth Anson, and it was she who introduced him to the wider family. He photographed the Queen for her 80th birthday and did much work for Clarence House, including portraits of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. He had a great knack for making people laugh – an invaluable skill in a photographer — and his subjects almost invariably looked happy.

When the then Camilla Parker Bowles took her hesitant first steps in the direction of formal public acceptance, it was Shakerley who was chosen to take the first official photograph. The result, unveiled in 1997 by the National Osteoporosis Society, of which she is a patron, was a shot of the future Duchess of Cornwall in her Wiltshire garden. As one reporter observed: “Here, surely, is a classic case of the picture saying it all.”

In 1999 Shakerley came to public attention after the wedding of Prince Edward (the Earl of Wessex) and Sophie Rhys-Jones, when he admitted digitally replacing a glum-looking Prince William with a happier face taken from another photograph for the group image released to the press. “Prince Edward said he didn’t think Prince William looked absolutely his best, so digitally we were able to put in another picture from one of the other shots where he is smiling and laughing,” Shakerley explained.

There was criticism from some quarters that he had broken the rules of photojournalism, but Shakerley explained that his sympathy for the young prince had led him to agree to doctor the image: “I’m sure Prince William would like the best picture of himself. I hope I haven’t in any way erred. I feel very strongly that poor Prince William has a hard enough time as it is.”

Shakerley also admitted to using copies of the Yellow Pages to adjust the relative heights of family members in the picture, using digital technology to hide the yellow spines, and found an ingenious way to solve the problem of making senior members of the British and European monarchies listen to his instructions without having to shout. He got their attention by blowing a kazoo.

Geoffrey Adam Shakerley was born in London on December 9 1932. His father, Sir Cyril Holland Shakerley, 5th Bt, was a career officer in the 6th King’s Royal Rifle Corps. His mother was the former Elizabeth Averil Eardley-Wilmot. An ancestor, Sir Geoffrey Shakerley, had been a leading Royalist during the Civil War, though the baronetcy was created in the 19th century for Sir Charles Shakerley, a prominent figure in Cheshire.

Geoffrey was educated at Harrow and at Trinity College, Oxford, where he read Law. He pursued a legal career at Lincoln’s Inn, but was never called to the Bar. He had always been more interested in photography, and in 1960 decided to turn his hobby into a profession.

During the early part of his career, from 1961 to 1963, Shakerley also worked as a dealer in 18th- and 19th-century English pictures with JM Maas. In 1963-64 he was a director of the Mayflower photographic studio. From then until 1970 he worked freelance.

In 1970 he established Photographic Records, a company specialising in cataloguing private art collections in order to facilitate recovery by the police in the event of burglary. In 1994 he was commissioned to take photographs of works of art at Buckingham Palace.

Shakerley’s expertise led to his being given broader commissions to photograph art and interiors. He took photographs for guide books for stately homes such as Bowood House, and in the 1980s worked extensively for the Victoria and Albert Museum, including photographing the Raphael Cartoons for the first time in 25 years. In 1982 he took the first-ever photographs of the House of Lords in session.

Shakerley married his first wife, the actress Virginia Maskell, in 1962; the couple had two sons. She died in 1968, and in 1972 he married Lady Elizabeth Anson, daughter of Thomas, Viscount Anson, and Princess Anne of Denmark, and the sister of Patrick Lichfield.

Princess Anne was a bridesmaid at their wedding in Westminster Abbey, and the Queen, the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret were among the guests.

The couple had one daughter, but drifted apart in the late 1980s and were separated for many years before they finally agreed to an amicable divorce in 2009.

The following year Shakerley married, thirdly, Virginia (née Hobson), whom he had known for many years. She and his children survive him. His son, Nicholas Simon Adam Shakerley, born in 1963, succeeds in the baronetcy.

Sir Geoffrey Shakerley, 6th Bt, born December 9 1932, died December 3 2012