Like any good photographer, Luis Luzuriaga thought about how he could create the perfect moment to capture when Queen Elizabeth II visited Dubbo in NSW's Central West on February 21, 1992.
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The idea came to him and while it didn't play out exactly as planned, it led to an incredibly special memory a family was able to share together again on Friday, following the death of Her Majesty at 96 years of age.
Luis was a photographer at the Daily Liberal in February of 1992 and his plan was to borrow a corgi - a purebred Pembroke much like Queen Elizabeth's own beloved dogs - leave it with family members at the rotunda on Macquarie Street ahead of the royal parade and then wait across the road and hope the moment played out as he dreamed.
Unfortunately for Luis, those running the show at the Daily Liberal office sent him out to the airport instead to capture the arrive of Queen Elizabeth and Price Philip and then other locations around town and he never made it back to the main street.
That left his mother, Kris (now Kris Stevens), with her then husband Allen and children Monique (now known as Mo'Ju) and Steven in charge of the dog and the plan to get a photo with the famed monarch.
"Allen then went on the other side of the barricade and tried to video it," Kris said on Friday, remembering the moment.
"The Queen came around the bend and she made eye contact with me and saw the dog and I knew immediately that she was going to come over and talk to us."
The Queen did make her way over and spoke to the family but the day's bad luck continued when then mayor Tony McGrane stood directly between Allen and the corgi, ruining any chance of photo or video.
"We were thinking 'here's this auspicious occasion and we're not going to get any photos'," Kris said.
"But my mother was in the Dubbo City Choristers and they were inside the barricade in the rotunda and one of the gentlemen in the choir got the photo.
"We were lucky as a family to get a picture of what happened but everything was against us."
For Kris, the feeling of nothing working out as hoped was karma for pretending to a own a dog which didn't belong to them all in the hope of getting to meet the Queen.
Luis and Kris had got the corgi pup from a breeder in Dubbo that morning and if getting the dog was one thing, studying up on its background was another just in case the Queen did come calling.
"It was six weeks old and it's name was Questa," Kris said.
"I still remember because I had to memorise all those details in case the Queen asked me a question.
"And she did ask if it was the first time we ever owned a corgi and I did say yes. I told her it was six weeks old and I had the whole conversation with her, so it was lucky I had been briefed.
"My son, Steve, gave her a bouquet of flowers and she's holding that in the photo, so that's cute."
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So what else does Her Majesty, who had been on the throne for 40 years at the time, talk to a family with a corgi pup about on a hot summer day in Dubbo?
"It was mostly about the dog," Kris said.
"She was intrigued by the dog and wanted to know how old the dog was and wanted to know it's name.
"They were trying to move her on and I feel like we could have stayed for half an hour talking about the dog. I would have run out of information but she had to get going to wherever she headed next.
"The last thing she did say to me before they ushered her away to get her into the car was 'it's such a hot day, I'm so glad to see you have some water for the dog'.
"She did not know we borrowed that dog. She thought it was ours and that's the story we were telling."
Like many who have been thinking back to the 1992 visit in recent days, Kris remembers the heat when she recalls the once-in-a-lifetime moment on Macquarie Street.
There were reports of people fainting and collapsing in the street and at Victoria Park as huge crowds of people were jammed in, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Queen and Price Philip.
It was that which makes Kris' memory of the monarch all the more special.
"I was very impressed by how calm, collected and elegant she was," Kris said.
"She wasn't fazed by the heat at all and you can see in the photos she wasn't dressed for those weather conditions, that's for sure.
"It was a great day for Dubbo and it was a great day for the Luzuriagas."
As amazing as the moment and the idea of being one of the few everyday people to have a conversation with Queen Elizabeth was, there were other emotions for Kris to wrestle with that day.
In 1992 she was starting to research her own family history and discovering more about her Aboriginal ancestry.
That makes her relationship with the Royal family an extremely complicated one and it was something Kris faced again on Friday when news broke of the Queen's death.
"It was sad and we have discussed the fact she represents colonialism and the exploitation of the First Nations people of Australia," Kris said.
"In 1992 we were coming to grips with the fact we had Aboriginality in our family. I do on my side ... and we were trying to learn about our culture and what had happened to the First Nations people and we were coming to terms with that.
"It's mixed emotions you feel. The Queen represents all that but I still recognise what a wonderful human being she was.
"She inherited that the same way we inherited our situation. But she had benefited from the fact she was born into that family and there was so many in Australia who are still suffering as a result of what happened when Europeans came to this country.
"I have European ancestry as well but I have to acknowledge some have done better out of colonialism than others so there's all of those mixed emotions, but it is a very sad time."
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Kris, who has since remarried, and her wife are also staunch Republicans, further complicating things.
"We think now would be a great time for Australia to discuss becoming a Republic but my wife was crying this morning (Friday) while looking at photos of the Queen as a young person," she said.
"We were sitting there together watching TV and that's something we don't normally do in the morning. It's a very sad day and it's the end of an era."
While watching the news on Friday morning Kris also sent the photo of her and her children with the Queen all those years ago to her family and they shared the memory again together.
Looking at the photo, the only other question left to ask was what happened to Questa after his moment in the spotlight?
"We took Questa back at the end of the day and that was sad," Kris said.
"I like to think that Questa had a long and illustrious life and one of the first things that dog ever did was to be patted by the Queen.
"It was quite special."
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Nick Guthrie
I started working at the Daily Liberal in 2013 and now hold the position of senior journalist. I cover all that's happening in sport in Dubbo and the wider western area and have a passion for doing so. If you've got a story that needs telling, reach out.
I started working at the Daily Liberal in 2013 and now hold the position of senior journalist. I cover all that's happening in sport in Dubbo and the wider western area and have a passion for doing so. If you've got a story that needs telling, reach out.
