Paparazzi

Recently I spoke to quite few people who are very interested in work as paparazzi and find it very entertaining (well paid as well). As a person who never liked fashion photography, I do not hesitate to go through yellow pages checking pictures of drunk, humiliated celebrities, exposed in all true colours for us to judge. I guess it's just human nature to dance a happy dance when someone (most of the time - more succesful) is in trouble or having a rough day.

So, trying to understand our curiosity and habit to care more about lives of celebrities instead of lives of our close ones, I did some research about paparazzi.

There are many scandals involving paparazzi, many unsolved cases and blames, like death of Princess Diana. The job is also very difficult - sometimes one paparazzi has to be at more than one place at the same time. But it really brings good money. For example best paid paparazzi photograph is worth 10 - 14 000 000$, and of course it's image of Angelina's Jolie twins. So why somebody is willing to pay such an enormous amount of money for the picture of somebody's kids? Why are we so interested in gossip, in people caught in unfortunate situation? Why do we talk and talk for hours about Britney shaving her head or Michael Jackson almost dropping his kids off the balcony? Is it just a natural curiosity or we are so bored with ourselves that we'd rather read all gossip magazines instead of having a pint with a friend?

Britney Spears attacks paparazzi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paparazzi
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4697388