A Day in the Life of the Paparazzi!
Posts tagged Three Rules
EXCLUSIVE: Happy Birthday Bro!
Aug 16th
I had to wake up early this morning to celebrate my brother’s birthday. We were going to go shoot paintballs at each other. We headed to the range about 8:00 AM out in the desert close to San Bernandino County. Yup! It was going to be our first time doing that. I figure I should be good at this since it almost requires the same techniques as being a paparazzo. You have to be covert, you have to have your eyes open for any possible target, etc. 
Well, my brother won, but I let him win since it was his birthday. I am a little bruised up from the paintballs. Damn! they hurt. I guess it wasn’t like being a paparazzo at all. I forgot about aiming correctly and being able to jump and roll like my brother did on occassions.
Well, I said goodbye to my bro since his girl had afternoon plans and I wanted to work a little because in two weeks I am celebrating my birthday. Yup! My bro and myself are about one year apart.
I headed back to West Hollywood. I made it home close to 2:00 PM. Funny thing that this is when I normally start my full day of work anyway. I promised Melanie that I was going to take her out one last time before she leaves for England. So, I decided to give my friend, Georgie a call to tell her that I could take her niece, Melanie, for one last ride.
I headed over to Santa Monica to pick her up. When I got there, I went into Auntie Georgie’s office and saw that her belly was huge, that baby of her’s in going to be big. She was looking radiant.
I said hello and Melanie quickly gets her stuff together. “I wonder if we can still catch up to the filming of Tyra Banks with Nicole Richie,” I thought in my head. Melanie says goodbye to Auntie Georgie and off we go. From my previous experience with Melanie, I had no luck checking out the scene in Santa Monica. So we decided to head straight to the source of the celebs…West Hollywood.
I was on my route heading southbound on Robertson Blvd. and I was spotting paparazzi left and right. “There goes another paparazzo,” I told Melanie. Once in front of The Ivy, I spotted Mary-Kate Olsen heading northbound with no security entourage. I made a U-turn in the middle of the intersection between Robertson Blvd. and Alden Drive in front of a bus. I was a few cars behind and so I had to play catch-up. We both made it past the light on Robertson Blvd. and Beverly Blvd. After passing a few cars, I was finally one car behind her. I was in the perfect spot for her not to notice me. The funny thing is that there was a paparazzo in front of Mary-Kate who did not notice her.
Once we got to Melrose Ave., the other paparazzo makes a left, Mary-Kate makes a right, headed straight into the paparazzi den. I thought that she was going to be discovered by others, but she wasn’t. She makes a right onto a little street and parks in a driveway. I give the video camera to Melanie so that she can participate and I parked across the street.
I told Melanie that we are going to be stealth. She understood what I was talking about because she reads my blog. I jumped in the back seat and she stays in the passenger seat. Mary-Kate finally gets out of her car and I get a couple of shots through the tint. Wow! I was surprised. Mary-Kate must have spotted me. After she came out, she looked at my car and started covering her face. Maybe my limo-tint is not as limo-tinted as I ordered it? I have to check on that tomorrow.
Actually, it wasn’t the tint. It was that Mary-Kate recognized my car. I have photographed her so many times that she is starting to know how to recognize me. 
That is why some paparazzi use rental cars and change them every once in a while.
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.
I follow these three rules because I want to avoid celebs like Mary-Kate being able to recognize my car and then covering her face not giving me any shots. Well, she went into the house. A few minutes later, her security detail shows up. “Well, it is time for us to leave,” I told Melanie. “Why?”, Melanie asked. I told her that the Olsen security detail are ex-cops that think they have the right to bully people around and I don’t want to put you in any danger. I heard from the paparazzi network that the Olsen security even placed a paparazzo in a headlock. I don’t know who that paparazzo was, but that is a little too crazy for me. We were off to find another adventure.
It was close to 6:00 PM and everything was slowing down. I knew that it was time to take Melanie home. So I told her that we were going to drive along Sunset Blvd. towards Santa Monica. Obviously, I was going to check a few spots along the way. I pulled into the Cafe Med parking lot and I spotted Max Weinberg walking towards Cafe Med. I remembered that last time I was with Melanie, I asked Mark McGrath to pose up with Melanie, so why not ask again. I rolled down my window and I asked Max if he would mind taking a picture with Melanie. He said, “Sure! Those are big cameras you have!” I told him that I was a paparazzo and that I was showing Melanie, who is here on vacation from England, around. “Have you got anybody good,” he asks me. I said, “No, not really.”
I stepped out of my car and Melanie followed. She gets right next to him and bam, I take a few shots and said thanks to Max.
Even though Max was really cool with me, I have to comment on his socks. Why does he get to wear them like that? My girlfriend always gets mad at me when I am dressed like Max.
Henry Flores
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Wednesday, August 16, 2006, 3:00 AM
