“The photo gods were on my side,” said Phil Noble, the Reuters photographer who captured the image

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.Credit : REUTERS/Phil Noble

The photographer who snapped the arrest photo of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is revealing how he captured the viral shot.

In a video shared to Reuters’ official Instagram account on Friday, Feb. 20, Phil Noble, a senior photographer for the news agency, offered an inside look into how the image came to be. Noble shared that he traveled to “four or five” different police stations on Thursday, Feb. 19, after learning of Andrew’s arrest that morning, hoping to catch a glimpse of the former Prince’s departure from custody.

“When I arrived, it didn’t look anything out of the ordinary. There was no cars, there was no increased activity,” Noble said. “And to be honest, just before he arrived, I’d left to go back to the hotel.”

Moments later, Noble said he received a message from a colleague telling him that two cars had just arrived at the police station, and that he should go back.

“Within one minute of arriving back, the shutters on the garage at the police station came up, and two cars left. One of them, he was in,” Noble continued.

In the half hour before he captured the image, Noble said that he took practice shots of other police vehicles at the station to fine-tune his flash and other settings.

He also noted that even with his practice and preparation, snapping the historic photo was “still more luck than judgment.”

Men step out of an unmarked car at the home of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on February 19, 2026 in Sandringham, Norfolk.Peter Nicholls/Getty

“There’s so many moving parts, you don’t know where the car is going to come from, where he’s going to be sitting in the car,” Noble said. “The photo gods were on my side.”

The resulting image, in which Andrew, 66, can be seen sitting in the back of a police vehicle, went viral, racking up millions of views on platforms like X and Instagram. It was also included in numerous news stories about his arrest on allegations of misconduct in public office on Feb. 19.

The arrest came after a complaint from the anti-monarchy group Republic, which alleged that Andrew engaged in “suspected misconduct in public office and breach of official secrets,” the BBC reported on Feb. 9.

The organization alleged that Andrew disclosed confidential documents to convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein in his role as U.K. trade envoy, in which Andrew oversaw the promotion of British businesses overseas.