Practical Photography

Love ‘em or hate ‘em the Paparazzi are an important part of Photography they get the most sought after images of celebrities and make a mint out of them. So how do you becaome a street rat of Photography? I’ve put together 10 steps to help any budding celebrity spotters…

1. Who are the Paparazzi? The Paparazzi are experts in Street Photography, they often follow celebrities around to capture that perfect “money” shot, be it Paris Hilton flashing a thong or David Beckham wearing a dress. The Paparazzi cash in by selling flattering, embarrassing or even revealing photographs to the media.
2. The Chase. The most basic technique is to stand on the street and wait for a celebrity to turn up but for the best pictures the Paparazzi hunt their prey, research or get informers to tell them where a celebrity may be and follow them around till the trip up. This has been very controversial as this influx of photographers around celebrities can often cause a celeb to stumble or behave more recklessly than usuall.
3. Tactics. The Paparazzi will use any means they can to get a good shot, a Paparazzi photographer must draw the celebrity away from private land to take the shot. Some photographers will sit in trees with a long lens to get a picture of the celebrity in their garden, some even set off fire alarms to draw celebrities out of buildings, technically this is illegal.
4. Money. Paparazzi sell there Photograph to the highest bidder it all depends on who the celebrity is?Is the photo verifiable? What is the celebrity doing? How high is the quality of the photo? And what do other paparazzi have to offer? Your not likely to make your fortune doing this as it is a highly competitve business and the cost of getting the image can be more than the price in some cases.
5. Technology. Technology has played a huge part for Paparazzi Photographers, digital photography has drastically reduced costs and smaller good quality cameras can be concealed in some cases, aswell as video cameras, these all make the life of a Paparazzi photographer much easier.
6. Anti Paparazzi. Celebrities take all kinds of measures to stop the Paparazzi from taking their Photograph from oversized sunglasses to avoid being recognised to assaulting a photographer.
7. Rights of Privacy. Paparazzi often breach rights of privacy check your rights.
8. Public Figures. Public figures sell, celebrities sell a public figure or celebrity is someone who is famous or infamous, someone who has been involved in a scandal, also someone who holds a lot of power like a politician or cheif exec of a large corporation.
9. The Law. Paparazzi fudge over the law and often get away with it but many celebrities are now taking Paparazzi photographers and the magazines that pay for the images to court. Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones, Ewan McGregor and the Princess Dianna cases all call for new legislations to be put in place.
10. Finally. Paparazzi Photographers are a huge part of modern society and as more and more rules are put into place photographers just find more ways to get around them and while people want to know and see celebrities they will always have work.