Synopsis
Stealth, impersonation, bribery, lock picking, ducking the cops. Oh, yes, and the odd bit of photography, too.
No, the paparazzi don't have it easy. They're reviled by their subjects, by their employers, by their voyeuristic audience—and by the fashion and news photographers who think of themselves as artists and the paparazzi as creeps with cameras. They're the bottom feeders who shoot celebrities in all their infamy: drunk, undressed, distressed, lip-locked wih folks who aren't their spouses. They're the hunters and chasers who've nabbed on film everyone from Pamela Anderson to Princess Diana.
And we all love it. We may not want to admit it, but we can't get enough of these photos, keeping the paparazzi in business by buying everything from People to the National Enquirer and all the fan magazines and tabloids in between.
Paparazzi turns the spotlight on these photographers and their highly paid profession; on the celebrities who are the object of their lenses; and on the society that begs them to capture these megastars in both ordinary and compromising positions. The top practitioners of this global pop art, along with the photo agency owners, magazine editors, and the stars themselves, give us stories of the famous and infamous we've never heard before. It's our golden opportunity to get behind the viewfinder and see the hunted from the hunter's point of view.
Publishers Weekly
Paparazzi are the result of a collision between a culture obsessed with celebrity and an established tradition of street photography, explains Howe, a former New York Times Magazine picture editor. The best photos taken by paparazzi, he says, have an element of confrontation, whether it s Cameron Diaz attempting to cover herself with an umbrella on a sunny day in Beverly Hills, Princess Diana forcing her hand in front of a camera, or Jackie Kennedy pulling her turtleneck up past her ears in an effort to cover her face. Howe s saucy yet erudite look at celebrity culture also illuminates the barely respected paparazzi themselves, from Rino Barillari, one of the original paparazzi of the Via Veneto in Rome, to Brittain Stone, lead editor at Us Weekly. It s a captivating read, bursting with gritty images of famous people in everyday scenarios, interviews with photographers and journalists about some of the biggest celebrity news incidents in recent American history and cheeky attitude (e.g., in the opening pages, Howe lists the cast, giving descriptions for each major player in the book. Susan Sarandon s description reads: If you don t know who she is, you re reading the wrong book ). (Apr. 15) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.