zondag, februari 17, 2008
Een paparazzo van 15 in Los Angeles
Vandaag in The Independent On Sunday een interview met de 15-jarige paparazzo Blaine Hewison-Jones uit Los Angeles.
Los Angeles, 10.30pm on a Friday night, and 15-year-old Blaine Hewison-Jones is getting ready to hit the town. Wearing a grey hoodie, baggy jeans, black trainers and a baseball cap, he accessorises with a big, digital Nikon camera, long telephoto lens and fancy flash-pack, worth a total of more than £3,000. He may be too young to drink or drive, but neither he nor his parents think he is too young to stand outside LA's bars, restaurants and clubs, photographing the celebrities who frequent them.
Hewison-Jones is one of a new breed of paparazzi – young teenagers who are chauffeured around LA, usually by their parents, in search of the famous and infamous.
To see such youth working in any profession, never mind the paparazzi circuit which is traditionally populated by the grizzled and the cut-throat, is shocking. But the lot of the paparazzo has changed dramatically in recent years. First, there was digitalisation. If you can get hold of enough capital to shell out on camera equipment, that is all you need to get started – these days no photographic training is required. Secondly, there is the seemingly endless media appetite for pictures. With some images changing hands for life-changing amounts of money, it explains why numbers of paparazzi have soared and the average age has plummeted.
Lees Confessions of a teenage paparazzo.
Los Angeles, 10.30pm on a Friday night, and 15-year-old Blaine Hewison-Jones is getting ready to hit the town. Wearing a grey hoodie, baggy jeans, black trainers and a baseball cap, he accessorises with a big, digital Nikon camera, long telephoto lens and fancy flash-pack, worth a total of more than £3,000. He may be too young to drink or drive, but neither he nor his parents think he is too young to stand outside LA's bars, restaurants and clubs, photographing the celebrities who frequent them.
Hewison-Jones is one of a new breed of paparazzi – young teenagers who are chauffeured around LA, usually by their parents, in search of the famous and infamous.
To see such youth working in any profession, never mind the paparazzi circuit which is traditionally populated by the grizzled and the cut-throat, is shocking. But the lot of the paparazzo has changed dramatically in recent years. First, there was digitalisation. If you can get hold of enough capital to shell out on camera equipment, that is all you need to get started – these days no photographic training is required. Secondly, there is the seemingly endless media appetite for pictures. With some images changing hands for life-changing amounts of money, it explains why numbers of paparazzi have soared and the average age has plummeted.
Lees Confessions of a teenage paparazzo.
# posted by Jan-Edward : 12:49
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