Out of Sight Media - A Day in the Life of the Paparazzi!

I found Jessica Beil on Melrose Place heading eastbound and she was already being hunted down. She was being followed by a seven car entourage. I made a U-turn and quickly made it an eight car follow. She then makes a left onto Melrose Ave. I was actually thinking that everyone already got her shopping along the trendy street where I found her, so I was hoping that she was going to give me another opportunity.

As we continued on the hot zone of traveled-paparazzi-streets, she continued to pick up more paparazzi on the follow. I think we were now up to ten by the time we passed Fred Segal on Melrose Ave. She just kept going and going. Finally, she makes a left onto Fairfax Ave. and then a right onto Sunset Blvd. I thought that she was going somewhere local, but I was quickly proven wrong when she made a left on Highland Ave. She could either be going to visit Eva Longoria, the Hollywood Bowl, or the 101 freeway heading north.

Darn! She got on the freeway. This was going to be a long follow. The worst part about it was that it was rush hour. Initially it looked like the freeway was clear, but that wasn’t for too long. We were in rush hour traffic with a ten car follow. What a nightmare!

We were finally getting close to Tarzana and she gets off the freeway on Reseda Blvd. She heads southbound and then makes another left onto Ventura Blvd. Well, at least she wasn’t going home. She pulls into this little tiny skin care studio. There was only enough parking for her car. Luckily I was directly behind her and I was able to find the nearest parking space. I stopped my car and I ran out with my camera. She was so quick to get out of her car that I couldn’t get one shot of her face. I could only get a shot of her backside as she walked up the stairs to the entrance. It was time to wait.

All the other guys by now had found parking and we all started to chat. Then one of them gets a crazy idea to shoot long. After some time we all get convinced that we were going to test our skills and see who the winner is with the long lens. To shoot with a long lens, you need to know what you are doing. Everyone put away their short lenses like the 17- 85mm and some even put away their short-short lenses such as the 10mm - 20 something mm. Wow! With that lens you could take a picture arms length from the subject and still get a full body shot.

We all took some steps back and waited. Everyone kept checking to see if anyone was going to cheat with a hidden short lens, but no one did. Everyone pulled out the big guns. We were going to give Jessica Biel plenty of space. I was shooting with my 120-300mm lens. This lens was starting to tire me out, it was so heavy. Finally, after two hours, she comes out. She smiled and gave us the shots. No paparazzi ran up, everyone kept their distance and their space. It was a perfect execution line.

Henry

Thursday, October 19, 2006, 3:37 AM