On Nov 28, 2003, at 11:30 AM, William Robb sympathetically disgorged disparagingly:
From: "Bob Walkden"that any appeal won't change the verdict..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3246718.stm Bob
Let's hope that the laws which allow this verdict remain unchanged, and
Actually, lets not.
William Robb
I must say, this past summer I had an interesting job which gave me new insight into the way of the paparazzi. I was hired via an agency in Montreal to work for Zuma Press, a very large agency in LA. I got to work with three National Enquirer photographers and their manager to follow Ben Affleck and JLo around Vancouver, and get some shots.
The pay was $250.00 USD per day plus mileage and expenses. It is an agency, so they sell the photos on the open market for you, and you get 50% of the take.
The NE photographers had been here for a month following Ben around when JLo suddenly showed up. They hired me for backup. All the NE guys had $10,000.00 digital SLR's and about $30,000.00 worth of lenses (one guy had an 800mm Nikon), laptops (mostly Mmmm, Mmmmmma, MMMMMMMaaaaaacccs) and world cell phones. They could take a picture, dump it into their laptops, and beam it to LA either via cell network or, if none were available, via satellite: the picture would be in LA in under two minutes from the front seat of their car! All of them had rented SUV's that they changed daily for reasons of stealth.
They got very few shots that were worthwhile, a few sold, but the ones that sold the most were MINE! Taken with ancient film and my trusty old PZ-1P! These guys basically were stalkers with cameras; technically, they weren't very good photographers. The shots of their's that I saw were tilted, some had telephone poles running through them, trees, etc. Although I didn't actually get a picture of J or B, I did get shots of their house, and the strip club, and Christian Slater's house. And those are the ones that sold. I actually got out of the car, set up the tripod, levelled it, used a nice 24mm lens, had the camera back parallel to the subject and carefully framed the shot. My shots were published in National Enquirer and Star Magazine in the US and the UK, Australian Women's Day, and Celebrity Justice (magazine and TV). I am still getting royalties from them. The one that pays the best is National Enquirer. A small matchbook sized shot sells for about $200.00 USD everytime they publish it.
BTW, the AVERAGE cover shot for People (published twice a month, I think, although I never read that trash) goes for about $35,000.00 USD!!!! And that is just ONE MAGAZINE! If I had actually caught Ben with the Hookers and got an extraordinary shot, I would be a very rich man now. $250,000.00 and up!!! And you wonder why there are hundreds of paparazzi.
BTW, all that stuff you heard last summer was TRUE! I was there!
Although it is seen to be the photographic underbelly of society, it was very interesting to work with them and see what they have to go through. Basically, you can only take a shot if the celebrity is on public property. You cannot legally shoot into windows and stuff, or impede them, and a good paparazzi doesn't because the shot won't sell. And yet the bodyguards are constantly harrassing these guys. And they are really, really nasty; the stuff they are doing is HIGHLY ILLEGAL. Threatening, swearing, pushing, charging at them at high speed with HUGE vehicles: all they want is a damn picture! With the amount of security around those two bozos, it was amazing that anyone EVER got a shot. They both had really viscious bodyguards, all nasty ex-marines who probably went crazy, and they have multiple body doubles and no less than three identical totally-blacked-out SUV's that they would send out simultaneously to try to throw the photographers off. The NE guys had just got back from Mexico, following Jennifer Aniston and whats-his-name, and they had hired a bunch of Mexican banditos who actually shot at them and chased them with knives and machetes! They said it was really nasty, and they were absolutely terrified.
From my perspective, these guys are just trying to make a buck, and anyone in Ben or JLo's position should know what comes with the territory. I don't know why they don't just stop and let them get a shot; it seems so stupid to have this constant war going on, and spending untold BUCKETS of money. Also, Ben Affleck is a total pig; he is an embarrassment to humanity and especially to men everywhere. He's about to get married to one of the most beautiful women on earth, who is also worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and is far more talented and smarter than he, and he is up here screwing a bunch of strippers with fake boobs from a Hell's Angels bar, with god knows what kind of STD's. Brilliant! What a freaking idiot! And yes, it is all true: I was there as it happened.
I made enough in the 5 days to buy an *ist D, a grip, and a lens, although I haven't done it yet because I am waiting for the next PMA in February, and I am not doing a lot of shoots right now. I have NO sympathy for these celebrities that are WAY too rich and will spend untold hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars just to NOT have their picture taken when out in public. Most of them are a bunch of EXTREMELY spoiled children, and they wholeheartedly deserve every bit of aggravation they get.
The photographer's that I worked with were respectful and operated within the law: B & Jlo's bodyguards certainly weren't, and didn't. They were violent criminals. The photographers just wanted a picture they could sell. All of the rest of the paparrazzi crap you have heard is just spin doctoring by the celebrities' PR machines. Some amateur paparazzis do go crazy and trespass and shoot into the bathroom windows and generally are an embarrassment; the pros that I worked with certainly wouldn't.
Just my $.02 Canadian (about $.0154012 USD).
Cameron
