A Day in the Life of the Paparazzi!
Posts tagged Old School Vs. New School
New School vs. Old School
Aug 6th
There are four types of paparazzi – the spotters, the doorsteppers, the photographer-spotters, and the fans. Well, I guess there is also Joe Simpson, so there are five types of paparazzi. 
Oh… there is also the event photographer which makes six.
The spotters are those that drive around a certain route and spot celebs in and around stores and/or driving. Now, there are also two types of car-spotters, those that can spot the celeb inside the car and those that spot the car. The Ninja, for instance, is a car-spotter. He is great at spotting a car in the distance and saying, “there goes Lindsay Lohan.” The problem with car-spotters is that if the celeb changes cars, then they will usually not recognize the celeb. I, on the other hand, can’t recognize a car even if it had to save my life. I cannot tell the difference between a Land Rover vs. a Range Rover, etc. I am a celeb-spotter. I could spot a celeb even if they are in the backseat of a limo just from their silhouette. This is why The Ninja and myself make such a good team. He makes up for my weaknesses and I make up for his.
The door-steppers are those photographers that wait outsite the celeb’s house waiting for them to come out. They follow and photograph the celeb once they have reached their destination. These types of photographers are not very good at spotting and therefore, have to wait at the celebs house for material. They sometimes don’t come out with a picture for weeks at a time since it all depends on the celeb coming out of their house. However, when the celeb does come out, the photographer usually gets a big name. I personally don’t have the patience to be sitting at a house for more than 30 minutes. I get bored easily.
The photographer-spotters are those that can’t spot a celeb even if they are standing right next to them. However, if there was another photographer taking pictures of a celebrity, then they pretend to know who the celeb is and they jump the story. Then they go home and try to find out who the celeb is. These guys/gals get all the photographers really upset.
The fan is another source of paparazzi. They use their phones, their PDAs and their little cameras to take a picture of the celeb. Usually the fan is kinda like the photographer-spotter. They come up to the photographer and ask, “Who is that?” These fans usually just get in the way of a good shot. I have actually been in many occasions where the fans outnumbered the photographers. We don’t mind the fans except when they get in the way.
Then there is Joe Simpson, the father of Jessica Simpson and Ashlee Simpson. He Paps his own daughters and distributes his pictures of his daughters through a paparazzi agency, WireImage. Have you seen the pictures of Jessica Simpson with the rollerskates from her new video, Public Affair? If you look at the photo credits, it says, “Joe Simpson/WireImage”. He is technically a paparazzi. Go figure, the preacher-dad who Paps his own daughters!
So this leads us into New School vs. Old School. Old School are the original paparazzi from back in the day. The original paparazzi are the spotters and the door-steppers. These types of photographers are the ones that don’t like to be seen by anyone, especially the celebs. We follow three rules: 1) if the celeb sees you, they will not do what they were intending to do, therefore, you would miss photographing a more interesting story; 2) if the celeb sees you, then they can recognize you another time, making it harder to photograph them in the future; and 3) if the celeb sees you, they could get angry and possibly cause a scene (e.g., bodily harm, calling cops and wasting taxpayers money, etc.), of which you don’t want to be part of.
The New School photographers are those photographers that don’t understand the relationship between the celeb and the photographer. These are a new breed of photographers that started because they saw TV shows about paparazzi; shows like “Celebrity Hunt Club” and Hollywood Snappers,” where they follow a paparazzi. All of a sudden people think that they can do the job and since they cannot spot a celeb, they spot photographers.
Because of the number of New School photographers, and since they do not understand the relationship between the celeb and the photographer, they usually get in the celeb’s face, invading their personal space, trying to snap a shot. New School is therefore, more aggressive. Because of the number of people, the paparazzi now have to use a fisheye lens to take a picture. If you extend your hand, you could probably touch the celeb, that is how close you have to get.
Old School is more passive…give the celeb plenty of distance to the point that if they do not see you, you have done your job. This is more exciting for The Ninja and myself since we get a rush thinking that the celeb is going to open a magazine the next day or week and say, “Wow! They got me doing that?”
Henry Flores
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http://www.henryflores.com
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Sunday, August 8, 2006, 1:00 PM
