Paparazzi Daze: Celebrity Encounters

Description

The paparazzi life was a crazy life...Waking up every day and wonder what celebrity I would chase or photography...Four years I did that crazy job. A decade later, I finally sat down and wrote about it.A pregnant Nicole Richie walking into the CNN building for her interview with Larry King Live. The photo was taken on April 4th, 2009 at 1:15 pm. That’s me on the reflection. I followed Nicole from her home alongside a paparazzi train (more than a dozen cars following). I was two cars behind Richie’s and had to run many red lights while honking to not lose the chase (with more cars doing the same behind me). As soon as Richie got out of her car, I jumped out of mine with my long lens (70-200mm/2.8f), ran towards her, and started snapping away. Only one other paparazzo caught some action with a short lens but his pictures were crap. Out of more than a dozen paparazzi, I was the only one that got pictures of her wearing a white dress standing in front of the elevator holding a cup of Starbucks. When Nicole exited the building, a gangbang of paparazzi awaited.I only worked that crazy job from 2007 to 2011, but in that period I photographed hundreds if not thousands of celebrities (many of them at LAX). I don’t remember all of my encounters, but my hard drive filled with celebrity proves who I shot, who was nice, and who was a dick (in my experience). There are other paparazzi with different stories and the way to do the job. These are my personal celebrity encounters and what my life was while chasing stars.