New Delhi, July 24 -- LONDON - The video Kensington Palace posted on Wednesday does not look staged. Prince George, thirteen years old on July 22, climbs rocks on a beach with his younger brother, Prince Louis, moves quickly, and there is no caption beyond a birthday greeting and a cake emoji. It is candid in the way that only royals can manage candid - produced by an institution, released to tens of millions of followers, and still somehow conveying the impression that nobody was watching.

Alongside the video came a new portrait by photographer Matt Porteous, taken earlier in the summer at Kensington Palace. George is in a dark suit and smiling, and the formality of the setting is offset slightly by his expression, which reads as recogn...