the Gear

#1 Cameras and e.t.c.:

• Two brands that come to mind in the Digital SLR arena today are Canon and Nikon.
• For video cameras, Sony, Panasonic and Canon are in the mix.
• laptops: Mac or PC (running Mac OSX or Windows Vista) wireless Internet and plenty of hard drive space.
  

The main differences between Canon and Nikon Digital SLR's are:

1. Price and value
   
2. Image Sensor Size (resolution, mega pixels, etc)
   
3. Image Color and Exposure
4. Nighttime flash color and exposure
   
5. Technical Support and warranty
   

#2 Transportation:

This varies a lot from Paparazzo to paparazzo or Agency to agency.
Most prefer compact, mid-size to full-sized SUV's and some cars including:

• Chevrolet Suburban's old and new
• GMC Tahoe's new
• Cadillac Escalades old and new
  
• Range Rovers and Land Rovers, LR3, etc.
• Toyota 4runners and Sequoia
• Old Ford Bronco's
• Old and new Ford Mustangs
• Subaru Impreza sedan or Wagon
• Ford Explorer's and Expeditions
• Mercedes Benz C, E, SL or M class
• Audi A4's, A6's and Q7
• Honda Elements
• Toyota Minivans
  
• basically anything with enough power to keep up with celebrities driving habits.

Very few paparazzo use motorcycles or mopeds/scooters.


#3 Essentials:

• a nice pair of binoculars (Canon, Nikon, Leica or Minox)
  
• pocket knife toolkit (Swiss Army, Gerber or Leatherman) should be plenty.
• bright and durable flash light.(Surefire, Maglight, etc)
• water (in your car)
• Portable/in-dash GPS or a city keymap (Thomas Guide for LA)
  
• smartphone, cellphone, Nextel, pair of walkie-talkies, police scanner
• messenger bag, backpack
  
• buisness cards
• windex
  

(more on the subject will be added later)

hit and miss (information)

The job is not 100% accurate all the time, it is mostly about chance in some cases. A little luck here and there goes a long way but hard work usually gets the shot, meaning long hours inside a car, parked at a "door step", then following the celebrity in a car (non aggressively is preferable), then doing the story (i.e. a celebrity goes to Bristol Farms for some groceries before Thanks Giving day).

Sometimes you can drive along the streets, neighborhoods where celebrities are most likely to be spotted (i.e. on Robertson Blvd.) Why do some paparazzi hang around Robertson Blvd? The answer is quite easy, its because several high-end restaurants and clothing boutiques attract most but not all celebrities.

• Robertson Boulevard Guide by Citysearch.com
  

Celebrities know if the do not desire to be photographed they shouldn't be anywhere near Robertson Blvd.

Quoting Scarlett Johansson in Parade Magazine:

On avoiding the paparazzi: “There’s plenty of restaurants and neighborhoods that I just try to avoid. It sucks—especially in New York, because you want to feel like you can walk around anywhere. But it’s okay. I think it’s an adjustment. It’s horrible that you have to make the adjustment, but being as I can’t change the state of where we are now, and I’m sure it will never change, you just have to make the adjustment. What’s the alternative? I don’t want to move to the middle of nowhere. I’m a city kid.”

Information is KEY, without this nothing exists. The most basic information is to know where a celebrity lives and/or stays while in town (i.e. Hotel or leased/owned house), other information is where is a celebrity dinning or having brunch at any given day.

There are two types of information, common sense and acquired.

This is common sense:

• Is a celebrity going on vacation?
• Is it his/her birthday?
• Are they expecting?
  
• Are the splitting up?
  
• Are they hooking up?
  
• Did they perish?
• Where they in an car accident?
• Are they in rehab?
• Did they "come out" (gay/lesbian/trans gender)?
• Did they have a makeover (shaved their head, blond hair, black hair)?
• Is it a Holiday?
• Are they filming a movie?
• Are they in a TV commercial?
• Are they addicted?
• Did they commit a crime?
• What car do they drive?
  
• etc...

Acquired is the type of information that is given by an "informant", sometimes even a publicist or in many cases a magazine reporter.

Thanks to information is that all the headlines and photographs that fill the magazines and its covers exist every single week.

Enough for tonight.

to be continued...

about the "blogger" and paparazzo

This blog was started out of madness really. Ti's a very hard industry to work for, but we'll talk about that in the future.

Gabo as he is "known" in the industry (and credited as such in some magazines/tabloids) is a celebrity photojournalist or has been trying to become one since April 28, 2006, 11 months ago. Since then he has photographed approximately 2000 photos of various celebrities for the agency he currently works for.

He knows nothing about the industry in comparison to some of his peers per say, but he's seen and heard enough to understand some of the intricacies and politics that run the Celebrity News machine. I will elaborate more on this within the next few months.

first things first:

this is what the definition of the job is:

Paparazzi is a plural term (paparazzo being the singular form^[1][2]) for photographers who take candid photographs of celebrities, usually by relentlessly shadowing them in their public and private activities. Celebrities claiming to have been hounded by such photographers often use "paparazzi" as a pejorative term^[3] while news agencies commonly use the word in a broader sense to describe all photographers who take pictures of people of note.^{[4] (thanks to wikipedia)}