It's 8 in the morning and Louise (who asks to omit her last name) is already in her car, parked outside Sofía Vergara's mansion in Beverly Hills. She is armed with a professional camera, a huge zoom, and a cup of coffee proportional to the hours she will have to wait to get some movement: probably many. But she doesn't care. She is protected by years of experience, tinted windows so that the neighbors do not suspect her presence, and the necessary training to endure the wait.
Louise is a professional paparazzi, a person with a docile character, with the appearance of never having broken a plate in her life, but at the same time with the aggressiveness and impudence necessary to take a photo of Vergara in a nightgown, robe, or evening dress. for a high-flying reception. That is the least. "I know it sounds a bit drastic, but the news cannot escape us," says this 35-year-old British woman with a smile, single and with a dog, a lover of Los Angeles and an excellent connoisseur of its streets and avenues. For this reason, when from his office -he works for a large agency that sells sensationalist material- he receives, via text message, the address of Vergara's house, he already knows where to locate himself to get the best angle in case the Colombian decide to make a move with her new boyfriend, fellow actor Joe Manganiello. "They are the news of the moment, so my boss asks me to wait as long as it takes," she explains.
But that day there is no luck. At one in the afternoon, she receives a tip that Vergara is at Soho House, a restaurant in West Hollywood, and that she has not slept at her house, but at his. There is no photo after five hours invested. "Sometimes it is very frustrating because it does not reflect what you have been doing, which is working very hard. But suddenly you get the photo and you feel that a small miracle has taken place," he reflects in front of a coffee, his fuel to always be alert.
Louise is a link in an infinite chain that began to be formed by the hand of a cinema genius like Federico Fellini, who baptized a photographer with the name of 'Paparazzo' in his film 'The sweet life', in 1960. A reference to the annoying and constant sound of an insect, of a bumblebee, which was not to the liking of those who then dedicated themselves to hunting for photos of familiar faces.
"People think being 'paparazzi' is easy, but sometimes you're scared. Sometimes it's really intimidating to have to do this."
Even today it is still not fertile ground for women. The paparazzi are mostly men, "a competitive, aggressive and male-dominated world that is not very attractive to us," says Louise, who confesses that she has had to build a considerable armor to resist the vicissitudes of the trade. "I've already lost count of how many times I've been told to roll the balls and not complain," she recalls.
Even so, she considers that her female colleagues "are as capable or more than men of succeeding and suffering as professional photographers of the heart." There are already several that have been noted for their clashes with celebrities, such as Logan Fazio, who had to endure the assault of rapper Kanye West last year when leaving a restaurant in Miami accompanied by his wife, Kim Kardashian. Fortunately for Fazio, he met West again at the Miami airport and he chose to give him a big hug of reconciliation, all captured by a good handful of cameras. Clear.
Miley Cyrus also faced paparazzi who tried to take photos of her without permission in broad daylight, without any aggression involved, although there was a lot of tension. The photographer Harsha Gopal had worse luck in London with Jude Law. "She hit me square in the face. It was without any provocation. She never asked me for forgiveness," she recounted, full of indignation.
Despite these incidents, the paparazzi are still at the foot of the canyon. Mainly for money, with salaries that can reach up to 130,000 euros per year. They have not managed, however, to improve their image. And they also face a tightening of the legislation on the private life of celebrities. Halle Berry and Jennifer Gardner, with the help of Democratic Senator Kevin de León, managed to pass a law in California to prevent photos of children of celebrities from being taken without the prior consent of their famous parents. This law came into force on January 1 of this year and has further complicated the lives of the paparazzi, especially those who work independently. It is 'vox pópuli' that an image of the son of a famous person is worth more than any other. And if not, tell Prince Jackson, the king of pop's eldest son, who now can't go to the gym without being harassed by a dozen photographers.
It is, according to Louise, a profession of resistance that can be annoying and even humiliating. The British remember how she had to endure the call from the manager of a five-star hotel asking her abruptly and curtly to collect her things in five minutes, she left the hotel and never came back.
All this after an employee surprised her hiding behind some bushes trying to take a picture of Kim Kardashian with her husband, rapper Kanye West. "I took my dog with me to pretend that she was walking him." But they realized her true intentions and ended up expelling her from her.
She tells it now with the gesture of someone who has fought a thousand battles in similar contests, but at the same time unable to hide her shame, and perhaps the frustration of enduring similar humiliations for selling a photo of her. However, she confesses that all this is anecdotal, that it does not matter, no matter how much psychological damage it entails. "In the end, the question is always the same: did you get the photo?"
Things are even tougher for those who earn a living independently, photographers recently arrived in Los Angeles from any country, looking for a life without fear of anything. That is why publicists say that Hollywood has become the 'Wild West', where people are willing to risk their skins for a famous image, even if it means hanging from a roof.
"It's hard to make a name for yourself in this city," explains Louise, who also confirms that the business is no longer what it used to be. "The money you make isn't what it used to be. Because of the drastic drop in magazine advertising and the saturation of the market, with so many people doing the same thing, the price of photos has gone down."
She still says that she likes what she does, that it is exciting, and that it allows her to travel the world and earn much more than she earned as a press photographer for a provincial newspaper in England. "And I've never been hit," she adds with a wry smile. Only Drew Barrymore was about to lose his temper and slap him. "She insulted me, out of her mind, saying that there was no right for me to photograph her. I was so frozen that I couldn't take pictures of her and another colleague who was contemplating the scene made gold with them," she laments. "People think being a paparazzi is easy, but it's scary sometimes. You're very intimidated having to do this."
She acknowledges, however, that she has learned to remain oblivious to insults and unpleasant incidents after shooting people like Cameron Diaz, Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, and a long list of names with her camera. She says it with pride. But at the same time, she recognizes that when people ask her what she does, she answers that she is a press photographer. "It's the easiest way to answer because you don't know how they're going to react," she confesses, aware of the bad image that the group has that reached its culmination after the death of Princess Diana in 1997 when she was escaping from the 'voters' by car through Paris. "People often forget that the driver was drunk and under the influence, and think that all we are doing is invading privacy, taking advantage of other people's hard work, but they don't understand that this is an essential service as well. for the famous. We are necessary for them to continue to be at the top. Otherwise, they would be much less relevant. Some advise me to get a real job, but I think I already have it, and I hope for a long time."
